


Cool Boy(friend)

by HyacinthsSoul



Category: My Engineer (TV)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Boys Kissing, Cohabitation, Developing Relationship, Domestic Fluff, Drinking, Fluff, M/M, Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:28:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 41,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23837593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HyacinthsSoul/pseuds/HyacinthsSoul
Summary: King doesn’t know for certain, but strongly suspects, that Ram’s feelings for him are not platonic.
Relationships: King/Ram (My Engineer)
Comments: 435
Kudos: 1212
Collections: T/CBL





	1. Wait. I'm your boyfriend?

**Author's Note:**

> I can't get enough Ram/King fic, so I had to start writing my own. Enjoy!

**My King  
** Cool Boy, we’re going out to the bar tonight to  
celebrate finishing midterms. Join us?

 **Ram  
**No.

Ram loathes social media. He posts nothing and comments rarely, preferring to direct message the very short list of people he counts as friends. But when that cocky interloper Bohn suddenly began pursuing Duen, he decided it was worth the aggravation of spending more time monitoring the activity of their now-overlapping friend groups. He doesn’t trust Bohn, not one bit. Not with the heart of a boy as naive and sensitive as Duen.

So here he is on a Friday night, at home covered in dogs (good), grimly monitoring other people’s celebratory TGIF photos and updates (annoying) and occasionally fielding texts from a certain irrepressibly chatty sophomore engineer (confusing, with a dash of endearing if he squints hard enough). He’s relieved to see that Duen isn’t part of the group out drinking; he’s watching his little sister while their parents are out of town. That’s good, Ram tells himself, because it means he doesn’t have to actively worry about anybody—just skim for any incriminating dirt on Bohn.

 **My King**  
Saved you a chair just in case. 

**Ram**  
Don’t bother.

The first couple of photos Bohn is tagged in look like any uni student’s night out on the town. Bohn’s usual crew—Tee, Mek, Boss, and of course King—is occupying the same table at the same bar where Ram had clashed with Bohn over who would take Duen home. They’re grinning and doing shots. A stupid pasttime, but unexceptional. At least there aren’t any girls hanging on Bohn this time.

Ram goes back to reading the book on dog behavioral psychology that he’d checked out of the university library. When he checks his feed half an hour later, the only appreciable difference in the night-out photos is that more shot glasses have accumulated in the middle of the table and King has shed his button-up shirt to reveal the tight black t-shirt beneath.

Not that Ram is paying attention to that.

 **My King**  
What are you doing tonight? Send me a  
photo. Do you have any tattoos I haven’t  
seen yet?

Ram sends him a close-up of his dog Balto’s face stretched in a doggy grin that just happens to show an alarming number of teeth.

 **My King**  
!! Don’t scare me like that! He looks like he   
wants to eat me. 

_Who would blame him?_ thinks Ram. But he lets King’s text go unanswered. 

**My King** **  
** I need another drink now thanks to  
your cruelty.

In the selfie King sends, he’s holding up a full shot glass while someone’s arm reaches into the frame to hand him another kind of drink, something tall with a straw and a paper umbrella. Ram frowns. Whose arm is that? The person is wearing a red long-sleeved shirt, which doesn’t match what any of their friend group was wearing, and the engineer bar doesn’t offer table service.

Frowning, Ram looks back through the previous photos until he spots a detail he’d overlooked before: a red-shirted man at a neighboring table. He’s visible in the background of two or three pictures taken by Tee, and in each of them he’s staring intently at King.

Not that it’s any of Ram’s business. Not that he cares. 

The dogs are whining to go out, so he puts on his jogging shoes and takes them around the block a couple of times, thinking intently about how much he doesn’t care who’s staring at King or possibly buying King drinks.

By the time he gets back to the house, Boss has tagged the whole group in a new update: **Engineering alumnus bought us all a round. Score!** **#engineers4ever**

In the photo, Red Shirt is now sitting at their table, his arm casually draped over the back of King’s chair as he raises his glass to toast with the students. He apparently bought drinks for the whole group (a nice gesture) but his sidelong look is only for King (fucking infuriating).

Alumnus. That means he’s graduated from university, so he’s a few years older than the sophomores at least. What’s he doing drinking alone at a university bar and insinuating himself into the company of a bunch of students?

 **My King**  
cool boy i mabye litle drukn &  
some guy tok your chare, sorry  
*chair

Ram puts his shoes back on and pulls up an app to order a taxi.

~

King is very drunk but the engineering alumnus doesn’t seem to mind. “You’re only young once,” he says, pressing another glass into King’s hand from the tray of shots he’s just fetched from the bar. “In a tough program like yours, you deserve to blow off steam now and then.”

Bohn begged off and went home twenty minutes ago to get ready for a video chat with Duen, and Tee is busy refereeing some kind of squabble between Mek and Boss. That leaves King chatting with the alumnus, whose name is Sonchai, or maybe it was Somchair? If he'd been able to hear his introduction clearly in the noisy bar, King would remember the name; King's memory is good even when drunk. But the place is a zoo tonight, packed elbow to elbow with rowdy engineering students.

“How long have your friends been together?” Son- or Som-something asks, nodding toward the arguing duo across the table. As they watch, Boss manages to spew half his drink down Mek’s shirtfront, with collateral damage for the nearby Tee as well. 

“Huh? Oh! They’re not a couple,” King says with a too-vigorous shake of his head. He sways a little on his chair. His friends are staggering to their feet to head in the direction of the restroom, probably for a futile attempt at cleanup.

“Oh, come on! The little one calls the other one ‘husband’ and himself ‘wife’—it doesn’t take a genius to know the score. Don’t worry,” adds the alumnus, “it’s safe to be out around me. I’m open-minded. You’re very pretty,” he adds, leaning closer and lowering his voice. 

King blinks. “Thank you?” he manages to reply, a little flustered. The man is pleasant enough, and not bad-looking if you like the burly athletic type, but he’s still a stranger and King isn’t sure how the compliment is intended.

Suddenly there’s a hand on King’s thigh under the table, though, and the man’s intent becomes a lot less ambiguous. “How about we get out of here?” he says. 

Several things happen simultaneously then:

First, King recoils from the touch, because _hell no_. He may be a friendly guy but that doesn’t mean he’s down to be groped in a bar by somebody he first set eyes on an hour ago.

Second, a hand clamps down hard on the back of the man’s neck.

Third, a familiar voice growls, “How about you get your fucking hand off my boyfriend?”

~

They’re halfway to King’s place in the taxi Ram had waiting outside before it dawns on King’s drunken brain exactly what Ram said just before he punched Son- or Som-something and dragged King from the bar by his wrist.

“Wait,” he says, raising his head from Ram’s shoulder where he’d been resting it. “I’m your boyfriend?”

Ram doesn’t say a word, just continues glaring out the car window. 

King isn’t even surprised. Of course Ram would expend ten words—a full sentence!—to tell off the guy manhandling King, but not a single word clarifying why he’d bother. Probably he didn’t mean it. Probably it was a convenient lie to give him an excuse for punching the groper.

“Anyway,” King mutters, “thanks.”

Ram doesn’t even acknowledge that he’s heard. He doesn’t speak to the taxi driver when they arrive at King’s building either, just pays him, adds a generous tip, and hauls King out of the car.

“You don’t have to walk me up, Cool Boy. I’m fine.”

That earns him an exasperated glare. King gives up and falls into silence himself until they reach his door. 

“Do you want to come in?”

Ram nods. Well, that’s progress, King decides, at least by the standards of the tattoo-covered, taciturn bad boy he may or may not be dating now.

 _Great. I have Schrödinger’s boyfriend,_ he thinks as he opens his apartment door and ushers Ram inside. As he locks the door behind them he hears a notification beep from his phone and fumbles it out of his pocket for a quick glance.

 **Cool Boy**  
I don’t know if you’re my boyfriend.  
You’d have to tell me that.  
But I’m yours.

Startled, King turns back to Ram to see him slipping his own phone back into his pocket. He looks as stoic as ever but he’s studiously avoiding King’s eyes, which King recognizes as a sure sign he’s deeply uncomfortable. 

There’s still so much he doesn’t know about this boy. The reason for his long stretches of elective mutism, for one thing. Trauma? A secret stutter? Is he on the spectrum? King doesn’t know. He doesn’t know Ram’s hopes and dreams either, or even his favorite color.

But he knows Ram is fiercely protective of his friends. He knows Ram works tirelessly and without complaint at whatever he takes on, whether it’s a class he struggles to understand or a volunteer activity he got roped into by his mentor. He knows Ram is kind to animals and loves his annoying little brother. He knows Ram hates small talk, hates all talk really, but will listen to King prattle on about anything and everything for hours. He knows that Ram’s inked body is fit and gorgeous, and that he’d like to get his hands on it.

He knows that he shivers inside when Ram seizes his wrist.

He doesn’t know for certain, but strongly suspects, that Ram’s feelings for him are not platonic.

“Cool Boy,” King says, his heart pounding alarmingly fast as he turns the phone screen toward Ram, “do you mean it?”

Ram nods just once, curtly, without meeting his eyes.

Well, two can play that game. Silently King opens his contact list, pulls up the listing for Cool Boy, and makes a quick edit. Then he holds out the phone to show Ram again.

 **Cool Boyfriend,** the entry now says.

And Ram smiles. 

He’s not showing nearly as many teeth as the dog photo he’d sent earlier, but King’s reaction is the same: _He looks like he wants to eat me._

A big hand encircles King’s wrist then, and King fully expects to be yanked roughly into Ram’s arms or maybe just dragged straight off to the bedroom. Instead, to his shock and shivery delight, Ram raises the hand to his lips and kisses the pulse point of King’s wrist so softly that it’s barely a kiss at all. Ram doesn’t even resist when King gently extricates himself from the grip to twine both arms around Ram’s neck.

“Seal the deal, Cool Boyfriend,” King says, raising his face to be kissed.

Ram remains wordless, at least for now, but that isn’t the same as soundless. He sighs when their lips meet and again when King’s tongue teases his. He groans when King goes up on tiptoe to press their bodies more firmly together and huffs in protest when King tries to step back again. He hums with satisfaction when he pivots them both to trap King between his muscular body and the door. He gives a soft gasp of surprise when King kisses and nibbles at his neck tattoo.

Ram is, in his own way, surprisingly eloquent. But King has a few things to say too.

“I’ve wanted this for _weeks_ ,” he grumbles as Ram runs his fingers through the dark silk of King’s hair and kisses each of his cheekbones in turn. “Do you know how many times I’ve thought about kissing you? Do you?”

Ram lifts his head just long enough to give him an incredulous look. _How should I know?_ his raised eyebrows say.

King bites him on the chin. 

“Every time you put your hands on me. Every. Single. Time.” King knows he sounds petulant and he doesn’t care. “Every time you grabbed me and dragged me around like I was your pet or your property.” 

Ram runs his hands down King’s arms to close firmly on his wrists like warm handcuffs. “Like this?” he says, the first words he’s uttered since the bar.

“Yes,” King whispers. He doesn’t resist when Ram raises his arms to pin them over his head and claims his mouth again.

He’s so gentle. That takes King by surprise. Ram’s literally got him trapped yet his kisses are so soft, slow and languorous, as though King deserves savoring. As though King is precious. But that’s always been Ram’s way, hasn’t it? To let his body do the talking when it really matters. 

A firm hand leading him past the dog he feared.

A strong arm raising an umbrella to shelter him from the rain.

A punishing fist for anyone who threatens him.

A sweet mouth tasting and exploring him.

When at last Ram releases his wrists, King is breathless and his knees are weak. He presses his palms to Ram’s chest and lets his head rest there too, sighing contentedly as one of Ram’s big hands settles at the small of his back and the other cradles the back of his head. 

“I like you, Cool Boyfriend,” he says. 

Ram nuzzles his hair. “I like you too.”

King can’t hold in a ripple of delighted laughter. “You only said that out loud because your hands aren’t free to text me, right?”

“Maybe.”

Something in Ram’s voice makes King think he might be smiling. King raises his head to confirm it and yes, he is. Just a little, just that slight upturn at the corners, but it’s definitely a smile. A fond one.

“Will you stay?” King asks. “Just to sleep,” he adds quickly when the tiny smile starts to falter. “I don’t think we’re ready for more, do you?”

“Mm. And you’re drunk.”

“And I’m drunk,” King agrees. “But that’s not why I want you here. You know that, right?”

“Mm.” Ram takes a step back, releasing King as he does so. It takes all King’s willpower not to push himself right back against that strong, warm body. “Shower?”

King wrinkles his nose. “Do I smell bad?”

“Not bad. Just boozy. Go wash it off.” Ram hesitates, then adds curtly, “Wash _him_ off.”

“Ugh. Yeah. Thanks for that, Cool Boy. I don’t know why you showed up when you did, but I’m grateful. I mean, I could’ve handled it my own way—you know that, right? I’m not big but I’m not helpless either. But I’m still glad you were there.”

“Me too. Go shower now.”

King rolls his eyes but obeys, stopping to gather his sleepwear first to avoid embarrassing Ram with the sight of him in a towel. His Cool Boy is a bit of a Shy Boy too, he suspects. 

He could be wrong about that, though. Because when he emerges from the bathroom in flannel pants and an oversized tee, Ram is already waiting in bed—wearing nothing but his boxers. King feels a little dizzy at the sight, and he doesn’t think it’s the lingering effects of alcohol. Holy crap. Is he supposed to platonically snuggle all night with _that?_

“Close your mouth,” Ram says. “You’ll catch flies.” And with that he subsides onto the spare pillow and closes his eyes.

King is smiling as he slips between the sheets and turns off the bedside lamp. 

“Goodnight, Cool Boyfriend,” he whispers.

A muscular arm draws him closer; a gentle hand guides his head onto Ram’s warm bare shoulder. 

“Goodnight, my King.”


	2. Scars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ram’s been King’s boyfriend for all of ten hours, most of that asleep, and he’s already doing a terrible job of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've got to learn to stop saying, "Oh, this is just a one-chapter fic!"  
> Famous last words.

Ram wakes to a sunbeam on his face, disoriented for a moment before he feels the warm body beside him and sees the verdant jungle of potted plants beyond the unfamiliar bed. 

_I’m with King. He asked me to stay._

Careful not to disturb the sleeping boy—his _boyfriend_ , Ram realizes with something very like awe—he rolls onto his side to take in the sight of his bed partner in the light of day. 

At first he smiles, because relaxed in sleep King looks like such a kid. He’s hugging a spare pillow, his lower lip is jutted out in a pout, and the silky forelock of his bangs has fallen over one eye like a disheveled pony’s. It’s so strange to see him still, King with his quicksilver mind and restless hands, the boy who’s always gesturing excitedly to accent a point or pushing his hair impatiently back from his face. Ram is tempted to poke him just to watch that brilliant mind come back online and animate his face.

Then he leans a little closer, and frowns. 

In the bright beam of sunlight cast across their pillows from an east window, King’s skin glows a warm golden brown...except for an odd pattern of silvery blemishes down the side of his neck, disappearing under his t-shirt.

What are they?

With a precision touch, Ram manages to pinch the shirt fabric between his thumb and forefinger without touching King’s skin. He stretches the neckline down and away, revealing more of the marks continuing across King’s right shoulder and down, past his collarbone almost all the way to the soft brown circle of his nipple. 

It takes a full thirty seconds for Ram to understand what he’s seeing. 

Scars. Scars from wounds inflicted on such a tiny body that they’ve stretched and grown with the boy over the years, but unevenly—distorting them out of the familiar shape Ram would have recognized at once.

They’re dog bites. 

These are scars from the long-ago attack that left King so terrified of dogs.

The realization hits Ram like a blow. Dear god. He’d heard that story but he hadn’t really _listened_ , had he? He hadn’t understood. Hadn’t grasped how small King must’ve been, or how ferocious the attack.

King wasn’t just bitten. King was _mauled_. 

How can this be? He’s stared at King a hundred times, fascinated by that lively face, that chatterbox mouth, the perfect sharp lines of his cheekbones and jaw. He’s looked at King up close in both natural and fluorescent light. How has he not seen this before? 

Again understanding is slow in coming: Yes, he’s seen King many times, but never in these intimate circumstances. Never in bed after a shower, his face and body scrubbed clean.

Quietly Ram slips out of the bedcovers and pads barefoot to the bathroom. After tending to his own morning necessities, he flips open the medicine cabinet and there it is on the bottom shelf: a bottle of Dermablend concealer and beside it a container of setting powder.

Ram closes the toilet lid and sits down on it with his head in his hands. Fuck. Fuck. He’s such an idiot. 

He’d _smiled_ over King’s fear of dogs. The first time they’d met, he’d let a dog scare King onto a picnic table and then he’d _walked away and left him there._ On another occasion he’d dragged King right past a barking dog even as King panicked and struggled frantically to get away.

And King never said a word of reproof afterwards. Quite the opposite, he’d thanked Ram for helping him past a dog that he would’ve given a much wider berth if Ram weren’t there.

Ram’s been King’s boyfriend for all of ten hours, most of that asleep, and he’s already doing a terrible job of it.

~

King is dreaming the most beautiful dream. He’s stretched out on his back in a breathtaking meadow of flowers, basking in the sunshine as pure white butterflies flutter down to land on his bare arms, forehead, and throat. Their feet tickle his skin, and King laughs out loud…

...only to wake to Ram planting a line of soft kisses down his neck.

Wait. What? Oh. _Ohhhh_. 

“Good morning,” he murmurs through dry lips. “I’m glad you’re still here.” 

“I’m sorry,” Ram says against his throat.

King blinks a few times, wondering if he’s still dreaming. But no, the dull throb of a hangover headache behind his eyes is painfully real, and the tingle of pleasure from Ram’s kisses is real too. 

He brings a hand up to palm the back of Ram’s neck as Ram lets his head drop onto King’s chest. “Sorry about what?” he asks. “Not kissing me, I hope? Because I can’t lie, Cool Boyfriend, I was looking forward to more of that. Just not this minute, because I need to pee and take some paracetamol.”

Ram presses a kiss to his collarbone before raising himself up on one elbow to gaze solemnly into King’s eyes. “I left you with that dog,” he says. “I thought I was being funny. I’m sorry.”

At first King is puzzled. Of course he knows what Ram is referring to; he’d cowered atop that picnic table for twenty minutes before the dog lost interest and wandered off, leaving him pale and shaking. But that was ages ago. Why is he apologizing for it now?

Then he feels Ram’s fingertips tracing patterns on his skin—little circles and short jagged lines—from just under his jaw to his shoulder and lower still, slipping under the loose neck of his oversized t-shirt. And he understands.

Gently pushing Ram’s hand aside, King struggles to sit upright and throws the bedcovers back. 

“Give me a few minutes, OK?” he says. “My head hurts and my mouth tastes like the floor of that bar. There’s juice and tea in the kitchen if you want something while you’re waiting.” 

He disappears into the bathroom, where he pisses, washes his hands and face, swallows two headache pills and brushes his teeth. He pointedly does not look at his reflection but neither does he reach for the concealer in the medicine cabinet. If they’re together now, Ram is going to see his scars on a regular basis. All of them. No point in trying to be coy.

Still, it takes a conscious gathering of his courage to remove the t-shirt and join Ram wearing only his flannel pajama pants. He greets a few of his favorite plants along the way, shored up by the sight of their beautiful foliage and the familiar feel of their stems and leaves under his fingertips. 

Ram turns as King is trailing his fingers down the vines that form a living screen between the tiny kitchenette and the sitting area. He’s holding a steaming mug of tea, which he hastily sets down on the counter when he sees King. His eyes widen and flicker downward as his boyfriend’s shirtless state registers. 

King forces himself to stand still as Ram circles him. In addition to the scars Ram has already seen, there’s another set on his upper back, twins to the ones on his upper chest from the dog seizing his little shoulder in its jaws and shaking him. His upper arm has a set too, where the animal tried to establish a new hold after his granny started beating it with a broom handle. 

“I was lucky,” King says while Ram is examining his back. “The bites to my neck didn’t nick the artery, and after that it went for my shoulder and arm instead of my face. Unless I wear a deep v-neck or a tank, which I rarely do, the neck scars are the only ones I need to cover.”

Ram’s arms come around his waist then, and he bends his head to kiss the point of King’s shoulder. “Why?”

“Why do I cover them?” He feels Ram’s nod against his shoulder. “When I was a teenager it was self-consciousness and vanity, I guess. I didn’t want to be different. I didn’t want to feel ugly. And then it just got to be a habit. Besides, if I cover them they’re not the first thing anybody wants to know about me.”

“Never ugly.” Ram’s mouth makes a slow journey along his bare shoulder to an exquisitely sensitive spot just below his ear. “Beautiful. You’re so beautiful.”

King turns in his arms then, so swiftly he surprises a look of naked tenderness on Ram’s face and kisses him fiercely before he can school it back to stoicism. And oh god, oh god, he hasn’t thought this through at all, has he, because kissing Ram while emotional and half-naked is like setting a match to a dry tinder.

In a heartbeat King is no long simply held in Ram’s arms, he’s _locked_ in them. One strong arm is clamped around his waist and the other around his shoulders, and Ram is returning the kiss with all the pent-up passion of a soldier home from war. 

And then, more astonishing still, he’s _talking_. Between kisses, his voice low and ragged and heartfelt, Ram is uttering more words in these few moments than King has heard from him in all the weeks since they met.

“Beautiful,” he repeats, kissing King’s mouth, his cheek, the hinge of his jaw. “Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.”

“You’re perfect,” he continues, kissing his way down King’s neck all the way to his collarbones. “You’re like sunlight. God. I tried not to want you. I _tried_.” He leans his forehead against King’s chest, breathing as though he’s just run a sprint. “But I do. I want you so much.”

King stands frozen at first, because whatever he expected from kissing Ram, it wasn’t this fervent outpouring of words. Words! Who knew Ram even had that many words in him? 

But it’s impossible to remain frozen in the presence of so much heat, and when King unfreezes it’s to melt completely, going boneless and pliant and simply trusting Ram’s strong arms to keep him upright. 

“Don’t fight it so hard,” he soothes, stroking a hand up and down Ram’s back. “I’m not. I want you too, Cool Boy. Just don’t sic your dogs on me, OK?”

Ram groans. “I really am sorry.”

“You didn’t know.” King ventures an affectionate little pat to Ram’s fine ass. “And you’ll make it up to me, right?”

His boyfriend raises his head to deliver a deeply suspicious narrow-eyed look. “How?”

King grins, following up the pat with a firm squeeze. “I didn’t mean I’d take it out in trade. For starters, how about a cup of tea and then we’ll go out to breakfast? Call it our first real date. I hear that diner on Plum Street has a hangover special.”

After a beat of hesitation Ram nods, relaxing his arms around King. “I steeped enough tea for two,” he says, gesturing to the counter where King now sees his flowered teapot has been put to use. “Didn’t know what you like in it, though.” 

“Just a little honey,” King says, handing Ram his abandoned mug before going to the cupboard to get one for himself. Soon they’re side by side at the kitchenette’s breakfast bar, sneaking glances at each other as they drink.

Ram reaches out to nudge one of three tiny terrariums that reside on the tiny shelf above the counter. “Pretty,” he says, but the sidelong look he gives King is questioning.

King nudges him with a shoulder. “If that’s the ‘What’s with all the plants?’ look,” he says, “you can just ask. Everybody does, sooner or later.”

His boyfriend just sips his tea and pointedly says nothing for another two minutes. Then: “King?”

“Yes, Cool Boyfriend?”

“What’s with all the plants?”

“Kiss me and I’ll tell you.” When Ram makes no move to comply, King sticks out his lower lip. “Stingy,” he grumbles.

With a far too long-suffering sigh for a boyfriend of less than a day, Ram swivels on the tall stool, captures King’s chin with one big hand, and tips his face up for their mouths to meet. _Happy now?_ his expression says when he draws back again.

King ducks his head to hide a smile. He is, in fact. 

He lifts one of the terrarium jars down from the shelf, his favorite of the three. It’s a zen garden in miniature, complete with a tiny patch of fine sand into which he raked patterns with the tip of a bamboo skewer. 

“It started after the dog attack,” he says. “I got a bad infection and they had to keep me in the hospital for several weeks. I was so scared and lonely, and even with the pain medication I was hurting a lot.”

He feels Ram’s hand settle at his lower back, warm and comforting, his thumb hooked into the waistband of King’s pajama pants. “How old?” his boyfriend asks.

“Five. Just a tiny thing.” King reaches into the terrarium jar to greet each of the little plants with a stroke of his forefinger. “But my kindergarten classmates made Get Well cards for me, and my teacher sent along a little terrarium kit—just a couple of tiny plants and some fairy-garden figurines, but I thought it was so beautiful. And it distracted me, you know? Took my mind off what had happened. The nurses even gave me a miniature lantern to put inside, powered by a button battery, so I could see my little garden right away if I woke up from a nightmare.”

“Baby,” Ram says, distress in his voice. King isn’t sure if it’s meant to be an endearment or a commentary on how young he was then, but it touches his heart nonetheless. 

“It’s a long time ago,” King reminds him, leaning into his warmth. “And plants became my friends because of it. By the time I left the hospital I had three or four little garden jars and a couple of potted plants too, a cactus and an African violet. The start of my plant family. I still have the cactus, I’ll show you later. It’s big now. You’ll like it. It’s prickly, like you.”

Ram snorts and elbows his side, breaking the mood. But he’s smiling, and so is King. “Get dressed for breakfast?” King suggests. “I can lend you some clothes.”

Ram nods, and King manages to round up the clothing and send him off to clean up without suggesting they save water by showering together. 

Not that it isn’t tempting. He meant it when he said _I want you too._ He’s just not sure how fast he’s ready to act on it. Bohn and Duen may have gone from “We’re boyfriends” to “Who’s on top?” almost overnight, but King is a more cautious and logic-driven decision maker. He’d like to see how they get along outside the bedroom before they start spending quality time between the sheets. There’s still a lot he doesn’t know about his enigmatic boyfriend.

King is frowning over one particular unanswered question when Ram reappears in yesterday’s jeans and King’s Little Shop of Horrors t-shirt. “Hey, Cool Boy?”

“Hm?”

“How long have you considered yourself my boyfriend? And when were you going to tell me?”

Ram gives him the flat, expressionless look that infuriates him so. He points to his mouth. _Kiss me and I’ll tell you._

King just grins and complies. “I’m liking this kiss tax system we’ve got going here,” he says. “Everybody wins. So?”

In answer, his boyfriend pulls out his phone and sends a text. He’s already out the door and halfway down the hall by the time King finds his phone and pulls up the messaging app.

 **Cool Boyfriend**  
The bus ride.  
Never.  
Let’s go eat.


	3. Book Smart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They’ve been boyfriends for three weeks before Ram realizes he’s never seen King study. Snooping and smut ensue.

They’ve been boyfriends for three weeks before Ram realizes he’s never seen King study.

Teach, yes. He witnesses that all the time. King is constantly helping his friends and juniors with everything from a quick explanation to hours-long tutoring sessions. He’s got a knack for instantly spotting the source of a person’s confusion and shining a clarifying light on it in the kindest possible way, without ever sounding condescending or superior. Ram should know; he’s the number one beneficiary of King’s largesse. Half the freshies in their faculty seek him out to beg his help before a big test.

So the God King deserves his reputation. But when exactly is he acquiring all this knowledge he’s so generously dispensing? 

It’s not as though they’re joined at the hip (more’s the pity), but Ram does have a front-row seat to King’s life these days, at all kinds of hours. From what he can see, King’s not studying before breakfast or during lunch. He’s not studying between classes or after class. He’s definitely not studying on Friday nights when Ram is determinedly mapping his erogenous zones for future reference, or Saturday mornings when they sleep late in a tangle of warm limbs and soft blankets and wake politely ignoring one another’s morning wood, or Sundays when they go to brunch and then King tutors Ram if he needs it.

Ram could just ask him, of course. But somehow it’s become a point of pride to ferret out the truth on his own.

He sees an opportunity one day when Duen is complaining that he won’t see Bohn for at least five days because the sophomore engineers have a high-stakes exam looming with a notoriously tough professor. It’s worth one-third of their grade for the semester. “They’re setting up a revision HQ in the library to study together every evening this week,” Duen says, “with all their dinners ordered in so they don’t have to stop even for meals. Bohn says if I bring him snacks he’ll pay me in kisses, though,” he adds brightly.

“Let me know when you’re going,” Ram says. “I’ll bring some for King.”

Duen shoots him an intensely curious look. “So things are progressing with you two?” he asks. 

“We’re good,” Ram says in a tone that broaches no further discussion. It’s the truth; they are good, better than Ram dared to dream. They’re not having sex yet but there’s plenty of kissing and intimate touching, a slow learning of one another’s bodies while they also get better acquainted as people. There are dates. Actual dates, which they schedule in advance and take turns planning. And if Ram occasionally—OK, often—yearns to skip a couple of bases and just throw his boyfriend down on the nearest horizontal surface and strip off every stitch of his clothing? Well, that’s not information he needs to share with his nosy friends. 

It’s nobody’s business but his and King’s.

~

“No, no,” Ram hears King saying as he and Duen approach the library study room, “you’ve forgotten to take into account the differing tensile strengths of the materials again, Bohn. Here, let me show you…”

Ram and Duen pause in the doorway to let King finish his explanation before interrupting with their snack offerings. They observe with fascination as King rapidly adds clarifications in red marker to a whiteboard already crammed with problem sets in black. Bohn is staring at it with fierce concentration, one hand raised to clutch a fistful of his own hair in apparent frustration. Tee, Mek, and Boss look less perplexed but only because they’re utterly exhausted, half-collapsed around the study table in a warzone of open textbooks, worksheets, scientific calculators, scribbled notes and crumpled paper.

King looks fresh as a daisy. There’s not a trace of weariness on his animated face. His place at the study table, which Ram recognizes by the presence of his botanical-print water bottle, contains only one notebook and a single pencil.

“I think I get it,” Bohn says at last. “Why didn’t the professor explain it your way? It’s so much clearer when—oh! Duen! Baby, when did you get here?” Beaming, Bohn hastens to welcome his boyfriend while Ram locks eyes with King across the room.

It’s one of Ram’s favorite things about the admittedly short time they’ve been together: watching King’s face light up when they see one another. There’s an expression he seems to save for Ram alone, so open and joyful that Ram can’t help but respond despite his usual distaste for public shows of affection. When King tries to give him a quick kiss on the cheek, Ram swiftly turns his head and captures his mouth instead, not giving one single damn that they have an audience. 

“I feel so single,” he hears Mek say mournfully.

“Show ‘em how it’s done, God King!” cheers Boss.

“Hi, Cool Boyfriend,” King murmurs when Ram releases him with a bonus kiss to the tip of his nose. “Nice of you to bring me something delicious. Oh, and snacks too?” He tips Ram a wink as he takes the tote bag from his hands and peeks inside, smiling as he sees all his favorites.

By unspoken consensus the engineers all take a break, spreading the snack offerings across the table to share and cracking open bottles of juice and energy drinks. Bohn deposits himself in Duen’s lap demanding to be fed chips by hand—and as annoying as Ram finds the cocky engineer, he has to admit that Duen has never looked happier. Love and getting laid clearly agree with him.

For a fleeting moment Ram feels a twinge of envy. His makeout sessions and sleepovers with King have been growing ever more heated, but he’s still relying on his own right hand for relief and he’s yearning for more. He’s absolutely not going to pressure King to move any faster than he’s ready, but it’s not wrong to hope that’s soon, right?

Across the table from them, Mek is leafing through one of his textbooks, flipping pages back and forth with a frown on his face. “King, where do I find those formulas for concentrically loaded compression members?”

“Page eighty-seven,” King says absently as he steals the juice bottle from Ram’s hand. “Cool Boy, did you decide where we’re going for our dinner date tomorrow?”

Ram looks at him blankly, then gestures at the table as if to say _Won’t you be here?_ But King shakes his head. 

“These clowns can live without me holding their hands for a few hours,” King says. “So I’m still up for it if you are.”

Ram is about to reply when he notices how intently their friends are following the conversation. He closes his mouth and picks up his phone. 

**Ram**  
Yes. Sushi?  
But don’t you need to study?

 **My King**  
No worries, I’m all caught up.  
Sushi to go, take it to my place?  
I want alone time with you.  
I want your hands on me.

 **Ram**  
Yes.

 **My King**  
Yes to sushi or…?

 **Ram**  
All of it.  
  


“I found the formulas but I’m still having trouble with this problem set,” Mek says, casting an imploring gaze at King.

King rolls his eyes. “Back to herding academically challenged cats,” he says, getting to his feet. He drops a quick kiss to the top of Ram’s head before circling the table to look over Mek’s shoulder. “Oh, here’s where you went wrong—you forgot to change this variable, see? Easy mistake to make. But otherwise you applied the formula correctly, Mek, so good job. I think you’re really getting this.”

Ram waves a goodbye and drags Duen away from Bohn, who stares after him so tragically that you’d think they were trying out for a production of Romeo and Juliet. “You’re leaving him with his study group, not sending him off to war,” Ram says as he pushes his friend out the door. 

“I just miss him,” Duen pouts, still pink-cheeked from Bohn’s attentions. “This structural engineering class has been so challenging that it’s really cut into our time together. I know his education comes first but I can’t help but feel a little sad about it.”

“Duen…” Ram pauses as they reach the library lobby. “Is Bohn smart, would you say? Book smart?”

Duen considers the question, lips pursed and brow furrowed. “Well, I’m biased, but I think so? It’s a different kind of smart from my medical classmates, but engineering is a tough discipline and he gets good grades in it.”

“Does he study a lot?”

“Mm, it depends. These marathon study sessions they’re having right now are unusual—it’s kind of a perfect storm of a big exam in a tough subject with a hardass professor—but he’s typically got a couple of hours of homework every day, plus extra time reviewing if there’s a quiz or test coming up. Why do you ask?”

“King doesn’t seem to study much.” _Or at all,_ he thinks, but something stops him from saying that to Duen. 

“Oh, King! He’s in a category all his own, though. He’s so smart the others aren’t even envious, they’re in awe. I think he understands the concepts so quickly that he doesn’t have to spend nearly as many hours with his books. He’s gifted. Always so kind about helping everyone too. You have a very sweet boyfriend.”

Ram can’t argue with that. But even if King is a genius, what about all the reading? On top of two core engineering courses, King is also taking a macroeconomics class and a literature class for his distribution requirements, and Ram has never seen him crack open a book for those either. 

He’s still puzzling over it as he and Duen push open the library’s big double doors into the cool moonlit evening.

~

“I give up,” Ram says.

Pausing with a piece of sushi halfway to his mouth, King cocks his head inquiringly. “Give up what?” he asks. “Your virtue? Because I’m on board with that plan.”

“No, I—wait. Really?”

They’re seated cross-legged on floor pillows, using King’s coffee table as their dining surface. To add date-night ambiance, King has arranged Ram’s takeout sushi order on a china platter and poured their inexpensive rice wine into actual ceramic sake cups. A potted orchid takes the place of cut flowers as their table decoration, because King always prefers live plants. 

With an enigmatic little smile, King pops the sushi into his mouth and keeps Ram waiting while he chews, swallows, and takes a sip of the wine. Rather than allow himself to grow impatient, Ram uses the time to appreciate how tasty King looks in his house clothes, a pair of raw silk drawstring pants and a black tunic with embroidery around the deep V of the neck. Ram is oddly touched to see that he’s left his scars unconcealed, which he takes as a sign of trust.

“What were you going to say, Cool Boy? What are you giving up on?”

“Figuring out when you study.” With swift chopsticks, Ram steals a shrimp from King’s plate. King’s right about snatched food tasting better, he decides. 

After a brief battle over the final piece of sushi—which King wins, but promptly feeds to Ram—they knock back what remains of their rice wine and eye one another speculatively across the small table. Ram digs into his pocket for the after-dinner mints he’d stashed there earlier and hands one to King, who sucks it into his mouth without comment. King’s earlier joke about Ram’s virtue, if it was a joke, hangs suggestively in the silence between them. 

King is the first to speak. “Here’s a critical-thinking tip for you,” he says mildly as he unfolds from his half-lotus position to clear their dishes. “If you’re having trouble finding an answer, check your assumptions. Make sure you’re asking the right question.”

Ram follows him to the kitchenette, carrying the sake cups and what remains of the bottle. He leans lightly against King’s back and reaches around him to place the cups in the sink, taking the opportunity to nuzzle under King’s ear. He sneaks a hand into the neckline of King’s shirt to pull it off one shoulder, earning a little shiver from his boyfriend as his lips explore the newly bared skin.

“I have a different question now,” Ram murmurs into the sweet junction between neck and shoulder.

“Yes,” King breathes. “Whatever it is, the answer is yes.”

“Dangerous,” Ram says, knowing King will intuit the rest: _to agree without knowing what I want._ He slips both hands under the bottom hem of King’s shirt, sliding one across his flat belly while the other teases at the drawstring waist of his pants. 

“Yes,” King says again. “It’s all yes, Cool Boy. Yes, kiss me. Yes, touch me. Yes, take me to bed.” He tips his head back against Ram invitingly. “Not...everything, OK? But a lot.” 

Ram’s fingers slip under the waistband but he pauses before delving further. “This?” he asks.

In answer, King loosens the drawstring and places a hand over Ram’s to guide it lower. 

~

Ram has always known—almost from the instant he glimpsed a pair of alluring eyes spying on him through the library shelves—that if he ever once gave in to his passion for King there would be nothing left of him. He would go up in flames and burn to ash, and simply blow away once King didn’t want him anymore. And that’s inevitable, he believes, because why would such a beautiful sunlit spirit ever stay with the dour likes of _him?_ So he’d tried not to want King, even as King blithely moved himself into Ram’s life and personal space and heart. 

Now, though? Now he thinks maybe the heat is worth the burning. 

They’re in one another’s arms in King’s bed, everything but their underwear now strewn on the floor, trading slow kisses and teasing touches as they work up to whatever King considers “not everything but a lot.” Whatever it is, Ram is one hundred percent on board. His heart is hammering wildly all the while, though, and he’s convinced he’s going to say or do the absolute wrong thing at any moment and ruin the mood. This next part is going to require words, probably a lot of them, and words are not his strong suit. 

But King knows that, right? And yet King is here clasped in his arms, nearly naked, returning to his lips again and again like a bee sipping nectar from a flower. 

“How much,” Ram ventures at last, “do you feel ready to do?” He combs a hand through King’s hair, those silken strands he so loves to feel between his fingers.

King’s smile is gentle. “Kiss me and I’ll tell you,” he says. 

The “kiss tax,” as King likes to call it, has become a little ritual between them. Ram often makes a show of refusing at first but secretly he’s tickled that they’re already developing this shared language as a couple. This time he makes no pretense of resisting, just leans in and kisses King firmly, teasing the seam of King’s lips with the tip of his tongue.

“Paid,” he says. 

“Mm. What if I declare a tax increase?”

In answer, Ram rolls him onto his back and covers him with his own body, again capturing the slippery silk of King’s hair between his fingers as he kisses him breathless. 

“Enough?” he whispers when he raises his head again.

King stares up at him, eyes half-lidded and a little dazed. “No. Not nearly enough. Keep kissing me, Cool Boy.” King’s hands pull him down and Ram goes willingly, losing himself in the softness of King’s eager lips again.

Then King rocks his hips up at the same time Ram pushes down, and _oh god_. So much for taking it slow. Ram can’t help himself; he bears down on King and grinds against him as they continue to kiss, chasing that delicious friction and the electricity it sends down his spine. He’s rewarded with King’s soft panting moans, which he hungrily devours. They’ve gone this far before but never while wearing so little, and Ram can feel his arousal mounting embarrassingly fast from overstimulation. He tries to slow the thrusts of his hips but holy fuck, King’s little moans are the best music he’s ever heard and he wants _more_. 

“If we’re going to stop,” he manages to gasp between kisses, “it needs to be now. Too good. Too close.”

King presses a warm palm to the small of his back, stilling him momentarily, and nips at his lower lip before replying. “I don’t want to stop,” he says raggedly. “I’m not ready to go all the way yet, Cool Boy, but I want to come with you. If you want that too.”

“ _Yes_.” Ram swallows hard. “How?”

King’s eyes lock with his, dark with desire. “Can you get off from just this?” he asks. “What we’re doing now?”

Ram’s eyes flicker down his body. “Easily.”

“Do it then,” King says. “But take everything off first, na? I want to feel it on my skin.”

“You want…” 

King arches up to rub his cheek against Ram’s like an affection-seeking cat. “Your cum,” he whispers close to Ram’s ear. “I want your cum on my skin.”

Ram could almost climax just from hearing those words. He has to take three deep, shuddering breaths and think of physics formulas to calm himself enough to continue. 

He strips off his own underwear unceremoniously and throws them aside, but King’s he makes into a little ritual, kissing his bare midsection tenderly before he slips his fingers under the elastic and begins to tug the briefs downward. His mouth follows the progress of the fabric, pressing a series of kisses to each newly revealed part of King: left hipbone and right, the happy trail of fine hair that begins just below his navel, the tip of his cock…

King makes a desperate sound as Ram’s mouth continues downward. 

Ram closes his eyes and savors, licking King like a delicious new flavor of ice cream. He’s dimly aware that his own cock is still aching for attention but he’s too intoxicated by the feel and flavor of King to care. Everything he tries—sucking, nibbling, taking King deep, teasing him with stops and starts—draws exquisitely beautiful new sounds from King’s lips. Ram feels like he’s learning to play some exotic musical instrument with his hands and mouth.

King’s hands tap his shoulders in a clear warning but Ram ignores it. He wants to hear the crescendo of this song he’s drawing out of King, every gorgeously moaned note of it. He wants to taste it too.

“Oh fuck, ohgod, I’m—” King’s back arches and his fingers tighten convulsively on Ram’s shoulders as his climax takes him. ”Ram. _Ram_.”

The taste and texture are strange, not awful but not pleasant either—an earthy, primal taste with a tang of bitterness and a hint of salt. With effort Ram manages to keep his lips closed around King and let the aftershocks ease before he swallows messily and pulls himself up King’s body to kiss the boy’s panting mouth. King sucks his own flavor from Ram’s tongue without hesitation.

“Now you, Cool Boy,” King urges between heated kisses. “Come for me.”

Ram needs no convincing. He pushes King’s knees up and apart and covers him again, shamelessly stoking his own arousal by rutting against the other boy’s slender body. He’s so hard he aches, driven nearly to the breaking point just by the sight of King’s sex-flushed face and the welcoming warmth of his skin. 

“You’re so beautiful,” he groans, pressing his lips to King’s throat. Desire sets free the words that so often fail him; they spill heedlessly from his mouth to the tempo of his own thrusts and grinds. “I want to fuck you. I want to love you. I want to take you apart. My King—my sweetheart—my baby, my baby, my baby, _mine_ —” 

He cries out then and with one final thrust he’s gone, shuddering and gasping, his cum spilling onto King’s taut belly to sully all that perfect golden skin. Ram feels a fierce, filthy joy at the sight. He loves seeing his spend on King’s skin. He’d fucking _shower_ his boy in it if he could. His baby. His King. His lover. 

He lets himself collapse onto King completely, smearing the mess between them as he continues to rock against him in the aftermath of his orgasm. “Sorry,” he manages to gasp against King’s shoulder. “I know I’m heavy, just give me a minute—” 

“Shh, you’re not.” King’s fingers caress the back of his neck before trailing gently down his spine. “I like you there. Just don’t fall asleep, you’ll glue us together.”

Ram snorts. “Romantic.”

“Practical. Cool Boy?”

“Hm?”

“I like you calling me baby.”

~

It’s much later, after they’ve showered together and put on gym shorts and t-shirts in lieu of pajamas, that a scrap of earlier conversation comes back to Ram and he frowns.

“What did you mean before?” he asks. “About checking my assumptions?”

They’re spooning in bed between freshly changed sheets, snuggled close enough for Ram to feel his little spoon’s body go tense at the question. But King’s voice when he replies sounds casual enough. 

“Well, what question you were trying to answer?”

“‘When does King study?’”

“Uh-huh. And what’s the underlying assumption in that question?” 

Ram considers it from all angles but can see only one possibility. “That King studies?”

“Bingo.”

“You mean...you _don’t?_ ”

“Nope.”

“Impossible,” Ram says flatly. And it is, isn’t it? King gets the highest grade in _every class._ There’s no way he’s slacking off.

With a little sigh, King rolls over to face him, expression serious in the soft golden light of the bedside lamp. “Look. You were going to find this out sooner or later,” he says, “but I need you to keep it to yourself, all right? Promise me?”

Ram reaches out to smooth the worried furrow between his dark brows with a fingertip, which he then trails down King’s nose to his lips. “Promise.”

King closes his eyes. “Pick a page number from your freshman Engineering Fundamentals textbook,” he says. “Any page, doesn’t matter.”

“Uh. Seventeen?”

“Oh, easy one—there’s nothing but text and a couple of formulas. Here we go then. Page seventeen, which continues a section entitled Linear Velocity that began nine lines previously on page sixteen: ‘Let us now examine the concepts of linear speed and linear velocity. Consider a car speedometer, which shows the instantaneous speed of a car. Before we delve into what we mean by the term _instantaneous speed_ , let us define a physical variable with which most people are already familiar, _average speed_ , which is defined as…’” 

To Ram’s astonishment, King continues without hesitation or any apparent struggle to recollect, simply reciting the text as though reading verbatim from an unseen page. After what Ram guesses to be the equivalent of six or seven paragraphs, he pauses.

“I could keep going,” he says, “but it’s pretty dull basic stuff. Feel free to check me on it later, though. How about some Shakespeare instead? Pick an act and scene from Hamlet.”

“Uh...Act Three, Scene Five?” 

“There is no Five but I can do Scene Four.” King’s eyes flutter shut again. “The Queen’s chamber,” he declares in English. He knows Ram will comprehend; with his mixed heritage Ram grew up speaking English as well as Thai, although he’s no more talkative in it. “Enter Queen Margaret and Lord Polonius. Polonius says, ‘He will come straight. Look you lay home to him: Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with, And that your grace hath screen'd and stood between much heat and him. I'll sconce me even here. Pray you, be round with him.’” 

He continues reciting without pause, getting as far as Hamlet’s slaying of Polonius before Ram stops him with a gentle hand across his mouth.

“Shia! Enough. You have a photographic memory?” 

Ram’s mind is reeling, but it explains so much. The ease with which King tutors everyone. His pristine space at the library table, empty of textbooks or study guides. Even the dog book he’d given Ram as a gift last week, commenting casually, “I know you don’t have this one” when he’d seen Ram’s bookshelf only once, for a minute at most.

King nods fractionally. “Eidetic memory. Yeah. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. It’s not just that I can’t forget anything. It’s like there’s a supercomputer in my head, subconsciously digesting information, analyzing it, and cross-referencing it with everything else I’ve ever read or heard or seen.”

“That’s why you don’t study. You don’t have to.”

“Not the way you think of studying, no. Before each term starts, I borrow the textbooks from the library and look at each page once. And then I just tell my brain to do its thing and process them.”

“King…” Ram waits, hoping King will look at him, but his boyfriend keeps his eyes determinedly closed. “Baby,” he tries, and that does the trick. King not only opens his eyes, he smiles. Ram rewards him with a peck on the lips.

“I do like hearing that,” King says softly. “But yeah. Your baby is a freak of nature, Cool Boy.”

There’s something so worried and vulnerable in his voice, mirrored in the anxious tension of his slim body. Ram strokes his hair, struggling to understand what’s going on here.

“Not a freak,” he says. “A miracle.”

King’s face eases a little at that. “That does sound nicer,” he says, leaning into Ram’s touch. “You’re wondering why I hide it, right?” At Ram’s nod he continues, “It’s like the scars, I guess. If I let it show, it’s the first thing people want to know about me. Sometimes the only thing. But it’s more than that.”

Ram waits for an explanation, and when King remains silent he tugs lightly at his hair. “Trust me,” he urges. 

“I do.” King captures his hand and brings it to his lips to press a kiss to the palm. “Cool Boy...there aren’t a lot of happy, stable supergeniuses. My parents found that out way back when I took my first IQ test as a kid and they started talking to people about how best to raise their weird little mutant. They’re pretty great, you know? My parents. They could’ve made a sideshow out of me, made me perform like a trick pony or pushed me to go to MIT at ten. But they asked the right question, which wasn’t ‘How much can he achieve as early as possible?’ It was ‘What will make him feel happy and loved?’ And the kids who became sideshows, they didn’t grow up happy. Neither did the kids who got PhDs before they were old enough to shave. Mostly they ended up socially isolated, lonely, fucked up and angry. My parents didn’t want that for me, and once I was old enough to understand the stakes I didn’t either.”

“What did you want?”

“To be happy. To be normal. To be a _good_ person, not just a smart person. A good son, a good friend.” He gives Ram a speculative sidelong look. “A good boyfriend?”

“Nailed that.” Ram kisses him again, slow and sweet, until King twines both arms around his neck and turns it into something hungrier. “Want to try for great?”

“Does my giant brain turn you on, Cool Boy?”

“Yeah,” Ram admits. “Not as much as your cute ass, though.”

King rolls his eyes, but he’s laughing and the worried look is gone from his face so Ram considers it mission accomplished. He pulls King on top of him and captures the cute ass with both hands.

His boyfriend grins down at him. “You know what this means, yeah?”

Ram raises a questioning eyebrow.

“What we’re doing right now? I’m going to remember it _forever_.”

“Better do it right then,” says Ram, and kisses him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll admit I didn't go back and rewatch all the episodes for instances of King studying. If they exist, then for purposes of this story just assume it's part of his camouflage.
> 
> This chapter was inspired by reading Peter Clines' novel The Fold, in which eidetic supergenius Mike Erikson has chosen a normal, unexceptional life as a high school English teacher.


	4. Puppy Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His relationship with Ram has an elephant in the room and King knows he can’t ignore it forever.
> 
> Well. Not so much an elephant. 
> 
> It’s a dog.

His relationship with Ram has an elephant in the room and King knows he can’t ignore it forever.

Well. Not so much an elephant. 

It’s a dog.

~

“You know the internet is full of cute dog pictures, right?” Bohn says, stretching out on King’s sofa with his laptop balanced on his belly. “And Google exists?”

King levels a glare at him and holds up the binder he’s prepared as bait-slash-reward for Bohn’s assistance. “This is your personal passport to understanding every concept we’re slated to cover in structural engineering for the rest of the semester,” he says. “Help me and it’s yours. Laugh this off and I set it on fire.”

“Fine,” Bohn pouts. “But I also expect you to feed me dinner. Including dessert. And I still don’t understand why I can’t get Duen to help—he’d melt at being asked to find the cutest possible puppy photos.”

“He would,” King agrees, “but he’s also Ram’s best friend and absolute shit at keeping secrets.” 

“I still hate Ram.”

“Good thing you’re not the one sleeping with him then.”

Bohn’s face cycles through a fascinating series of expressions that King interprets as “Do I want to know? I kind of want to know. Will I wish I didn’t know if I know? Probably. Oh, fuck it.” When the actual question comes, though, it’s not the one King expects.

“Does he treat you right?”

King smiles at him fondly. “Are you going to fight him again if I say No? Don’t worry,” he adds hastily as Bohn’s expression begins to darken. “Ram treats me like a prince.”

“Does that make him your princess?” Bohn asks with a smirk.

“No more than you’re Duen’s wife,” King retorts, aiming a throw pillow at his face. Bohn snatches it out of the air without comment and tucks it behind his back. “Anyway, it’s more like I’m the prince and he’s the hot, mute bodyguard the prince is secretly boning.”

Bohn eyes him skeptically over his laptop screen. “Mute? _Secretly?_ When I dropped by last week I could hear his sex noises all the way down the hall.”

“But you didn’t drop by last—” King begins. Then realization dawns. “Ohhh. Shit. Wednesday night? Thank god you turned back, I’m not sure I could’ve stopped him from killing you if you interrupted _that_.” He knows the smile blooming on his face is foolish and besotted but he can’t help it. “And you still had to ask if he treats me right?”

“He was the one making happy-noises, not you,” Bohn points out.

“Bohn.” With a sigh, King crosses the room and drops into the armchair opposite his friend. “You’re my best friend in the world and I know you actually do worry about me—so I’m going to say this. But only once, OK? _Ram makes me happy._ In fact, the louder Ram is, the more certain you can be that I’m happy, because what pushes his buttons is pushing _mine_. Got it?”

After a moment’s hesitation, Bohn gives him a grudging nod. “Got it. And I’m glad. I just wish it was someone else.”

“And I wish you hadn’t told me what Duen did to your ass last weekend, but we can’t have everything we want in this life. Now are you going to find me some puppies or not?”

Bohn’s eyes stray to the thick binder on the side table, his promise of a top grade. “Yeah, sure. Run the criteria past me again?”

King ticks them off on his fingers. “Puppies only, not grown dogs, the younger the better. Toy breeds only for now—I’ll send you a list. The tiniest and fluffiest you can find. Ideal is if they have the facial proportions we subconsciously respond to in human infants: large forehead, big eyes, round face. And most important of all, _no teeth showing._ ”

“No cute doggy smiles?”

“Fuck, don’t joke about that. _No._ ” King wraps his arms around himself as he shudders. 

“Oh, shit. I’m sorry, King.” Bohn shoves his laptop hastily aside and hauls himself up to kneel beside King’s chair. “Buddy, I’m so sorry. Come here.”

Because it’s Bohn, King can allow himself the comfort of a warm hug. He presses his forehead to Bohn’s shoulder, going through the familiar steps to relax his body and calm his breathing. He’d rather not explain to Bohn that his freakish traitor of a brain just presented him with a rapid-fire slideshow of every snarling dog he’s ever seen, in person or in photographs, including the one that savaged his five-year-old body. But maybe he doesn’t have to. Bohn just hugs him close and pats his back as if he were little Ben.

It’s not usually this bad, hadn’t been for years. But ever since those days in forced proximity with Ram’s dogs during his boyfriend’s family crisis, King finds himself nearly jumping out of his skin around dogs again. They were so large, so wolflike, and with three of them he constantly felt surrounded. Threatened. He likes to think Ram didn’t notice, but a mental tally of the times Ram had to talk his panicky ass down off a piece of furniture suggests that he’s kidding himself.

“I'm so pathetic,” he mutters once the panicked moment has passed. 

“You are,” Bohn agrees cheerfully, pressing a brotherly kiss to his temple. “A total loser. Now go make my dinner while I find you puppies.”

~

King’s no medical student but he does recognize the pitfalls of self-diagnosis. Ideally, he’d seek professional help before attempting desensitization therapy for his phobia. But he feels exhausted at the very thought of explaining to a stranger the unique workings of his mind, and wary too. There are reasons he keeps his supergenius status a closely held secret, among them the very real fear of exploitation. 

Besides, he absorbed all the most respected peer-reviewed papers on phobia mitigation therapies over his morning tea. His subconscious is already busy cross-referencing them with his past reading on behavioral psychology to fine-tune a course of treatment.

In the meantime, there are cookies.

“Cookies!” exclaims Bohn with delight as King sets the dessert plate down in place of the dinner dishes that he’s all but licked clean. Then he takes a closer look. “Dog cookies?”

“From that bakery on the next block. They made them for me special. Go ahead,” King urges. “They’re not dog biscuits, they’re just decorated shortbread cookies in dog shapes.” He holds up a beagle wearing a tiny red jacket of icing, turning it Bohn’s way for inspection before biting its head off. “See? Delicious.”

Bohn chooses a dalmatian wearing a firefighter helmet and a cocker spaniel in a tutu. Cookie in each fist, he proceeds to alternate bites of each. “They’re really good,” he agrees through a mouthful. “And seeing these doesn’t bother you?”

“Nope.” King finishes the beagle cookie and passes Bohn a napkin for the crumbs escaping down his chin. “They’re stylized enough that my brain doesn’t associate them with real dogs. The idea is to start with the most non-threatening forms of exposure and gradually work my way up. The cookies are Step Two.” 

“What was Step One?”

 _Seeing the wolf tattoo on Ram’s forearm while he was jacking me off,_ King thinks but prudently doesn’t say aloud. “Looking at a line drawing while distracting myself with something pleasant,” he says instead. “Step Three will be the puppy photos you’re finding. Eventually I’ll work up to voluntarily being in the presence of live dogs, but that’s going to take a while.”

“Mm. I’ve rounded up quite a few pics already, do you want them in a cloud gallery?”

“Yes, please. I really do appreciate it, Bohn.” Stretching out an arm to the side table, King grabs the binder and transfers it to Bohn’s lap. “Your reward, sir. In tabbed sections that match the prof’s syllabus, with study aids and practice problems for each one.”

“Fuuuuck, I’m going to ace this!” Bohn exults, hugging the binder to his chest. “Let me know if you need more puppies after you’ve looked at the first set.”

“I will,” King says, but he feels a leaden weight settle in his stomach at the thought.

 **King**  
Bohn is finally gone,  
want to come over?  
  
**Cool Boyfriend**  
Yes. Sleepover?  
Should I bring anything?  
Takeout?

 **King**  
Already ate with Bohn  
…  
…  
You could bring condoms.  
If you want to?

 **Cool Boyfriend**  
Stupid question from a supergenius.  
See you soon.

~

Ram almost doesn’t click the link. The text from Duen just says “Awww look at the cute puppers Bohn sent me!”—which might be worth a glance if Ram were bored, but can’t compete with King asking him to come over _with condoms._

But then he notices the title on the forwarded link: **Gallery - Cute Puppies for King**

King? His King? What the hell? 

Ram knows for a fact that King doesn’t look at dog pictures, not intentionally. He wouldn’t even open the cover of the dog book he gave Ram as a gift; he’d confessed to shopping for it online with images turned off, paying extra to have it gift wrapped before it shipped. He’s the only person Ram knows under the age of 70 who routinely browses the web in text-only mode. 

“When people come across something vile online they say ‘I wish I could unsee that,’” King told Ram not long after the revelation about his eidetic memory. “But the truth is that visual memory fades fast for most people. Just look at the unreliability of eyewitness reports. Me, though? I can’t unsee anything _._ A day from now or a decade, it doesn’t matter. So I’m careful about what imagery I consume. I don’t need a lifetime supply of horror-movie jump scares, bad porn and outtakes from _When Animals Attack_ in my head.”

Baffled, Ram taps the link on his phone screen and yes, as advertised, it’s a collection of puppy pictures. Mostly toy breeds, which isn’t his preferred type of dog (although still better than most humans he meets). Lots of big eyes and button noses. Cute. But what does it have to do with his boyfriend?

 **Ram**  
Why is it for King?

 **Duen**  
…  
…  
Oh god Bohn says please please  
PLEASE forget you saw that!!!  
He’s begging you.  
It’s my fault for forwarding.  
Please don’t tell King!!!!!!

Ram doesn’t reply; he owes Bohn nothing. But he mulls over this puppy mystery on his bus ride to King’s, if only to distract himself from thinking about King’s intentions for the condoms tucked away in a discreet zipper pocket of his messenger bag.

They haven’t talked about next steps in their sex life. Ram being Ram, they haven’t talked about a lot of things, although they’ve still managed to communicate surprisingly well. It helps that so much of intimacy and sex is body language, in which Ram is fluent. Words can be lies and misrepresentations but body language is almost always truthful. He learned that from dogs. It’s more complicated with humans, though, because A. everything always is, and B. humans have nuances like getting off to fantasies they’d run screaming from in real life. 

Ram gets that explicit consent is imperative. He does. He just wishes it didn’t require so many fucking _words._

Should he ask King about the puppy gallery? He doesn’t give a damn about Bohn’s feelings, and even Duen’s now take a backseat to King’s. But whatever is going on, it’s something King has chosen not to share with him. Common sense tells him he should respect that. 

But dogs. Dogs are King’s greatest fear and every fiber of Ram’s being yearns to protect King. 

(And also to fuck King. Thankfully the two are not mutually exclusive.)

Ram’s dilemma is neatly solved when King opens the apartment door to him, however, because no mortal man could be expected to form words when faced with King fresh from the shower, wearing nothing but a towel.

Some words do emerge from Ram, to be sure, but they’re pure babble straight from his id and they all consist of variations on “you’re so fucking beautiful” and “god I want you,” groaned between the hello-boyfriend kisses that rapidly turn into foreplay kisses.

“Uhhng...hi?” King manages to say faintly as Ram licks drops of water from his collarbones. His hair is still damp, which completely justifies Ram snatching the towel off his waist to blot it dry. “Cool Boy, ohgod—Ram. _Ram_. Slow down, OK?”

Ram halts obediently and tries to convey apology with his eyes, although it’s difficult to feel genuinely sorry for anything that leaves King with kiss-reddened lips, a pretty blush, and pupils dilated by arousal. All the same he hangs his head to show contrition and is rewarded with King melting into him.

“It’s all right, Cool Boy,” King murmurs into the crook of his neck. “I like knowing you want me, na? I like it a lot. Just say hello first.”

Ram slips a hand between them to cup King’s chin and raise it enough to gaze directly into his eyes. “Hello,” he says distinctly before kissing him again. “In my defense, you’re naked.”

“There was a towel.” King looks around in confusion. “Where did it go?”

“On the floor behind you where I dropped it.” Ram caresses the tempting contours of King’s bottom, adding, “In my defense, it was covering this.”

“I try not to answer the door with my ass in the breeze,” King says, “even for you. Cool Boy, this me-naked-you-fully-dressed situation…” King twines both arms around Ram’s neck and presses their bodies more firmly together, earning a hum of pleasure from his boyfriend. “It’s doing something for me.”

“I noticed.” Ram eases one jeans-clad thigh between King’s naked ones, feeling his own arousal spike when King responds with a hungry little gasp. “Tell me why?” he suggests. It’s partly a cheat, a trick to get King talking so he won’t have to himself, but he also genuinely wants to know.

King doesn’t answer immediately, instead canting his hips deliberately against Ram to court the friction of the denim against his naked cock. A soft moan escapes him and he lets Ram take more of his weight as his breath quickens. His eyes have gone dark with desire, his head tipped back at an angle Ram knows to be an invitation. Ram responds by planting a series of lingering, open-mouthed kisses from the hinge of King’s jaw to the point of his shoulder, stifling the urge to bite as soon as he realizes his lips are crossing the path of King’s scars.

When King does reply it’s simply to say “Come here” and lead him to the sofa, where he pushes Ram down and climbs into his lap—a position that renders Ram temporarily incapable of rational thought. It’s almost too much, this double armful of bare, limber King with his ankles crossed at the small of Ram’s back, his erection trapped between their bellies and his firm ass warming Ram’s cock through his jeans. 

“I feel more naked with you still in your clothes,” King explains, pressing his cheek to Ram’s shoulder while he catches his breath. “More exposed. But in a weirdly good way, you know? Like I’m trusting you with my whole body. Offering it all up to you.” 

“And are you?” Ram asks huskily.

A little shiver passes through King and he tightens his legs around Ram for the leverage to press his ass more firmly to Ram’s groin. “Fuck. You know I am, Cool Boy. You know what I asked you to bring. Did you?”

“Yes. In my bag.” Ram settles both hands at the small of King’s back, fingers splayed, applying gentle pressure to encourage King in the slow, rhythmic motion he’s begun. “I wasn’t sure, though.” 

“Of what?”

“If they were for you or for me.” Ram catches the startled hitch in King’s breathing and raises a challenging eyebrow. “You’re surprised?”

King regards him speculatively. “Honestly? Yes. Something you said…” He looks away, suddenly shy, but Ram knows what he’s referring to.

“I remember.” _I want to fuck you. I want to love you. I want to take you apart._ “It’s more than that, though.” 

He can see from King’s expression that he doesn’t understand, and any attempt at clarification catches in Ram’s throat. Stupid fucking words again. Instead he bends his head to capture King’s lips with his, kissing him deep and slow as King rides his lap, letting the heat build between them until the intoxication of it can loosen his tongue. King’s hands tighten on his biceps as he bears down harder on Ram’s cock, still painfully confined in his jeans.

Intimate contact with King stirs a whole cauldron of conflicting desires in Ram, dark and potent. One moment he wants nothing more than to lay flowers at King’s feet and worship him; the next, to push him down and use his sweet body till he cries. It’s overwhelming and bewildering, and he has not the faintest clue how to translate those seething emotions and fantasies into action with the very real, very naked boy in his arms.

“I want all of it,” he says against the pulse point of King’s neck. “To fuck you, my baby. To be fucked by you. Anything. All I can have.” His voice is ragged, needy. “Tell me what I can have, King.”

King’s hand caresses the back of his neck. “Cool Boy,” he murmurs, “it’s not just up to me. We’re supposed to do this together, right? Remember that I want you too, every bit as much as you want me.”

Ram raises his head to stare at him. “I hope not,” he blurts out. “The bed will catch fire.”

Laughing, King wraps both arms around his shoulders and drops a kiss on the top of Ram’s head. “I have a fire extinguisher. Come on, let’s get more comfortable and figure this out.”

~

King fully expects the preparations to be awkward and embarrassing. The steps he’d already taken in the shower before Ram’s arrival had felt unpleasantly clinical, even with nobody but him to witness them. 

He’s wrong. So wrong.

Also? Ram is a demon from hell. An unholy incubus, sent here to visit erotic torment upon King’s defenseless body until he’s so sexually frustrated his soul despairs and departs this mortal plane.

“I swear...to god...I’m _ready,_ ” King gasps. “Cool Boy, _please._ ”

“Not yet,” Ram says stubbornly. “Not till I’m certain I won’t hurt you.”

King is splayed out naked on his bed, spreadeagled and writhing on Ram’s well-lubricated fingers, one fist to his mouth so he can bite down whenever the pleasure spikes so intensely he’s afraid the neighbors will hear his moans. He’s got his own toothmarks all over his knuckles, his cock is so hard it hurts, and his entire nervous system is lit up like a Christmas tree.

“You’re already hurting me,” King insists, his back arching helplessly as Ram repeats a particular thrusting-scissoring-twisting combination that’s become the centerpiece of this torture session disguised as foreplay. “You’re...fucking... _killing_ me.”

Ram gazes down at him with a gentle adoration entirely at odds with the torment he’s been inflicting on his beleaguered boyfriend. King wants to kill him. This gorgeous silent bastard has brought him to the teetering edge of orgasm so many times it’s become the cliff King now fully expects to die on. But first he’s going to murder Ram. Preferably by choking him with his dick.

King’s been fingered, tongued, and frotted on, stroked, jacked, massaged and sucked—and if Ram had continued any one of those activities even five seconds longer, he would’ve come his brains out at least three times by now. But each time, Ram has backed off with King just a hair's breadth away from climax. 

How he’s able to gauge that exact point is beyond even King’s comprehension. It’s possible supernatural powers are involved. Hence: demon.

Tenderly Ram strokes sweat-damped hair back from his forehead. “Soon,” he promises. 

“Ram. _Now._ ” The quavering intensity of King’s voice finally gets Ram’s full attention. Wrestling himself up on his elbows, King brings his face close to Ram’s and pleads, “I need you, Cool Boy. Your baby needs you.”

He sees a tremor pass through Ram’s body then, and despite his strung-out nerves King instantly zeroes in on how affected his man is by the simple act of echoing his own endearment back to him. And isn’t that intriguing, though? And yeah, he’s going to exploit the living hell out of it, because if Ram doesn’t let him off this edge soon he’s going to spontaneously combust (and not in the good way).

He looks up at Ram through half-lidded eyes, letting himself remember that first glimpse in the library. _I want to know you better,_ he’d thought then. Never dreaming that in a matter of weeks he’d have that enigmatic tattooed boy naked in his bed, learning him body and soul.

“Come here, Cool Boy,” he croons. “Come here and kiss your baby.”

Ram takes the bait, pausing only long enough to wipe his slickened fingers on a corner of the sheet before covering King with his body to claim his mouth. King surges up against him fiercely, urgently, tightening his arms and legs around Ram to trap him in the embrace. The sweet kiss transforms rapidly into something half-feral, King moaning and clawing at Ram’s back, angling his hips into Ram in unspoken demand.

But he’s trapped himself right along with Ram, because the full-body contact is almost more than his overloaded senses can bear: the heat of Ram’s body, the strength of his arms, the slide of his hands across King’s skin. King feels like a moth drawn to a lantern, battering himself against the glass that separates him from the burning he craves. 

He brings his mouth to Ram’s ear. “Your baby _needs_ you,” he repeats, low and imploring and trembling with truth. “Your baby needs you _inside_ , Cool Boy. Don’t make me wait anymore. Please fuck me, fuck your baby, _please_ —”

The desperate sound Ram makes is not a word in any human language but King knows it means “Yes” all the same.

~

 _There’s no going back from this,_ Ram thinks as he rips open the condom packet with shaking hands.

His defenses are gone, all of them, weakened by King’s quiet acceptance and patience and crumbled to dust at King’s touch. He can no more resist loving the beautiful young man spread out beneath him than he can will his heart to just stop beating. 

The kisses he presses to King’s inner thighs as he parts them are his terms of surrender.

“Baby,” he whispers as he pushes slowly but inexorably into the heat of King’s body, a choked gasp escaping him as his cockhead breaches the tight ring of muscle. The very thought that he’s sheathing himself in King is almost more than he can bear _—_ much less to feel it, to gaze into his eyes while the hot smooth grip of King’s core yields to the progress of his cock. “Oh god, baby.”

King’s breath hitches too, his eyes wide and wild. “You’re inside me.” 

“King.” Ram swallows convulsively. “Baby, I’m afraid to move.”

“I need it,” King says hoarsely. “I’m so hard for you I’m going to shatter. Fuck. Fuck. _Please_ move.” Experimentally King tilts his hips up to change the angle, a tiny motion but enough to send a jolt of electric pleasure up Ram’s spine. “So good,” he groans, rocking his body up and back once, twice, three times, each repetition coaxing new sounds out of Ram. “Oh god, Ram, I’m full of you and it’s _so good—_ ”

For one frozen moment Ram just stares wide-eyed at him. Then he slips a hand behind King’s left knee, pulling King’s leg up onto his shoulder with a hiss of pleasure as the position allows him to push even deeper, and with a moan of encouragement from King he begins to move. 

He intends to take it slow. He does. But King, already overstimulated, _wails_ and clutches hard at his shoulders, twisting under him with little panting cries, throwing his head back and pleading, _begging_ —

“Fuck oh fuck _yes_ , Ram _yes_ , please love, please _harder,_ please _yes,_ please _fuck yes._ ”

—and Ram’s animal instincts take over. He slams his hips forward, bottoming out in a single thrust, his mouth swallowing King’s cry with a kiss hard enough to bruise. He immediately draws back, contrite, or tries to, but King is having none of it. His body answers just as fiercely, fingernails raking Ram’s skin as he rises up to meet each one of Ram’s hard, possessive thrusts.

“Ram!” he cries out. “Ra– _ah!_ –am, Ram, _Ram…_ ”

“Baby. Beautiful baby.” Ram’s hands worship every smooth expanse of King’s skin that he can reach as their bodies move in unison, finally slipping between them to wrap firmly around King’s swollen cock. “My tight sweet baby, oh god...King, oh god…” He’s gasping against King’s shoulder now, his whole body shuddering. “I want you too much, baby love, I won’t last, I won’t, baby I’m sorry—” 

“I won’t either,” King pants. He shifts under Ram, locking his ankles at the back of Ram’s thighs and nudging Ram’s hand away from his cock to replace it with his own. “Do it,” he urges, his voice low and ragged, his hips rising again to meet each eager thrust. “Come in me, come for your baby, let me feel you. _Do it._ ”

That sweet imploring voice is all it takes. With a groaning cry, Ram thrusts home again and shudders in ecstatic release, letting the hot clench of King’s body milk him of every drop. He chases the white-hot pleasure with each reflexive jerk of his hips, chanting King’s name over and over until oversensitivity turns his words into whining gasps and he stutters to a stop. 

Little tremors travel up his spine as he carefully eases out of King, drawing back just enough to remove and knot the condom and pitch it toward the wastebasket in the corner. Then he curls himself around his baby again, petting and praising him, pressing kisses to his temple and murmuring low in his ear as King strokes himself toward his own rapidly approaching climax.

“You’re so fucking beautiful like this. Look at you. Even your cock is beautiful.” He splays a proprietary hand across King’s middle, just above his straining cock and busy fingers, feeling the thrumming tension there as his lover’s back arches with his efforts. “Next time I want it in me.” 

King’s mouth opens on a soundless cry and he comes in gorgeous creamy spurts, spilling down his own hand and across his belly where Ram’s hand rests too. Ram hums in approval and massages it into King’s skin as his lover trembles through the aftershocks, saving just enough on his fingers to carry a taste to his mouth.

“So dirty,” King breathes, watching him lick it from his fingertips. “Fuck. Kiss me, Cool Boy.”

Ram obliges, letting King taste himself on his tongue. 

He’s grateful the kiss prevents him from speaking, because it’s probably too soon for the words he aches to say.

~

After more postcoital kisses and a shared shower, the two of them lounge between fresh sheets with King’s head pillowed on his boyfriend’s shoulder. Ram’s body feels pleasantly loose and languid but he’s still keenly aware of King’s closeness, high on the warmth of his body and the clean scent of freshly washed boy. 

Will he ever take King’s presence for granted? He can’t imagine it. 

“Tired?” he asks, turning his head to press a kiss to the arch of King’s eyebrow.

“Mmm,” King murmurs. “Yes and no? I’m not ready to sleep yet. But I don’t want to move either. This feels nice. Cool Boy…”

“Hm?”

“Was it what you expected?”

“No.” Ram brushes a soft lock of hair away from King’s forehead. “So much better. But I wish I could’ve lasted longer for you.”

King’s laugh bursts forth with a snort. “After those thousand and one hours of foreplay? I would have died. Cool Boy, you opened me up so thoroughly you could’ve sent a freight train in there and not hurt me. By the time you fucked me I thought my nervous system was going to explode like a transformer in a lightning strike.”

“Too much?” Ram asks worriedly.

King nuzzles into his shoulder. “Just this side of too much. I’m not complaining, na? It felt amazing. But next time believe me when I say I’m ready.”

“I will. I promise.” Ram’s hand strokes down the side of King’s neck to his shoulder, then stills. “I wanted to ask you…” He circles one of the larger scars with his thumb. “I’ve been kissing you here, but I should’ve asked first. Is that OK?”

“Of course.” King’s voice is tinged with surprise. “I’d tell you if it wasn’t. The scars are old, Ram, there’s no pain there. And I like your mouth on me.”

“But if I wanted to...nibble? Would that be OK?”

King levers himself up on one elbow to peer down at Ram’s face. “You want to bite my neck?”

The corners of Ram’s mouth twitch. “Not more then ten times a day.” He reconsiders. “Maybe twenty. I just didn’t know if I should, because of this.” He taps the scarred area lightly with his fingertips.

“I told you, there’s no pain—oh.” King’s face registers his sudden comprehension. “Oh, you mean would it trigger bad memories? Not unless you grow a muzzle and fangs before you do it, Cool Boy. You’re not a werewolf, right? That’s not the reason for your dog pack?”

Ram shakes his head, amused.

“We’re good then.” With a teasing little grin he tilts his head up and back, exposing the side of his neck invitingly. “Bite away.”

Surprised but far from unwilling, Ram takes a long moment just to admire, his gaze traveling the slender column of King’s neck from the perfect shell of his ear to the slope of his shoulder. Then he licks his lips, hikes himself up to King’s level, and without further ado sinks his teeth into the flesh just below the delicate earlobe.

The effect on King is galvanic. He first stiffens and then goes limp and pliant, his head lolling back to grant Ram even more access. Ram takes prompt advantage, nipping and sucking his way along the strong tendon down the side of King’s neck.

They’re just love bites; there’s no question of them drawing blood, although Ram soothes each one with his tongue before going on to the next tempting patch of skin. King gasps softly each time, breathy little kitten-hisses that incite Ram to earn more. He rolls King onto his back and straddles him, palming his cheek to turn it away before he dives in again, stretching the neckline of King’s loose t-shirt out of the way as he continues the trail of bites onto King’s shoulder and upper chest. 

He finishes with a soft bite and a softer kiss to King’s nipple before tugging the t-shirt fabric back into place. “Thank you,” he says with a deep sigh of satisfaction. “I’d wanted that for a while.”

King smiles up at him, his expression a little lust-dazed but also clearly pleased. “See? No panic.”

“I’m glad. King…” He hesitates, but the subject has been opened—however obliquely—and it feels right somehow to pursue it. “Baby, why is Bohn gathering dog pictures for you? He didn’t tell me,” he clarifies quickly as he sees King’s brows draw together in a glower. “Duen shared the link with me because it was puppies—he didn’t realize it was a secret.”

“It wasn’t exactly a secret. I just didn’t want to get your hopes up.” With a quick irritated shake of his head, King adds, “I should’ve known Duen would spill the tea. Dammit. Lie down, Cool Boy, I might as well extort some cuddles from you if we’re going to talk about this.”

Ram obeys, cozying up into the familiar spooning position they both favor. “You don’t have to,” he says, kissing the back of King’s neck. “If you’d rather not.”

“No, it’s OK.” King presses back against him, wriggling a little to settle his backside more firmly into the cradle of Ram’s hips. “I asked Bohn to help me find harmless dog pictures so I wouldn’t have to search for them myself, and probably see others that would feel more threatening.”

“But why?” Ram asks.

King is silent for a time, and Ram doesn’t rush him. He uses the opportunity instead to slip a hand under King’s t-shirt to caress the soft skin of his belly. He loves King’s body, fit and slender, flexible as the bamboo the green-thumbed gardener likes to grow in copper tubs on his balcony. Not for the first time, Ram thinks he’d like to get a plant tattoo on his body to represent King. Maybe the Venus flytrap, maybe the variety of flower King had tucked behind his ear in his little garden sanctuary. The thought of something honoring King permanently inked into his skin pleases Ram in ways he’s not yet ready to examine too closely.

“I want to cure my phobia,” King says at last, “for you. The puppy photos are just the first stage in desensitizing myself to them a little at a time.”

“For me,” Ram echoes. 

“So you can have dogs,” King explains. His hand fumbles under his shirt to find Ram’s and link their fingers together. “I know how important they are to you, Cool Boy. They’re part of who you are, just like my plants are to me.”

Ram kisses the nape of his neck again, absurdly touched. “I love that you want to do that. But King, I already have dogs. You’re not taking anything away from me.”

“I know. But I freaked out having them here even for a couple of days. I want you to have dogs that can live with us as part of the family, the way you want them to be, not locked away like they’re a burden to me.”

“Dogs that can…” Ram sucks in a surprised breath and his hand squeezes King’s tightly. “Live with...us? Us together? Us a family?”

“Yes, in our house with you and me and the plants, and—and—” 

King’s voice cuts off as abruptly as though someone has pushed an Off switch.

With their bodies in such close contact, it’s impossible not to notice King startle. Ram feels him jerk as though he’s been shocked, feels the jolt of it through his own body and wraps his arms more firmly around his boyfriend to hug him close. “King? Baby, what’s wrong?”

“I—fuck. Fucking _hell_. How did I not—?” King relaxes against him again but Ram can still feel traces of the agitation in his restless body language, in the fingers suddenly drumming against his forearm and the slim legs shifting restlessly against his. “Shit. _Shit_. I think my brain just had a software error.”

“I don’t understand. What does that mean?”

“It means your genius boyfriend is actually an idiot.” King laughs shakily. “Cool Boy, I somehow hatched this whole phobia-elimination plan in elaborate detail without letting my conscious mind think about _why._ And now I’ve just surprised the hell out of myself—and probably you—by talking about a future that we’ve never even discussed. Your baby is a dumbass. I’m sorry.”

“Why should you be sorry?” Ram runs a caressing hand across his chest, gentling King with his touch. “I think about it too. Living with you someday.”

“Really?”

“Sure. We should.” Definitely the flower tattoo, Ram decides. The Venus flytrap is important to him but the first time he felt sexual desire for King burn itself into his very bones was the moment King tucked the flower behind his ear.

“ _Sure?_ That’s it?” King’s voice is incredulous, and Ram can hear a tremor of anxiety too. 

“Yes.” 

“Isn’t that something we should discuss?” King demands. “It’s a big step and we haven’t even talked about it.”

Ram sighs against his neck and nips it for good measure. Words. Words making everything complicated again. Couldn’t they stick with kissing? Even fucking seems less complicated than words, and fucking requires _lubricant_. 

“But it’s you,” Ram says finally, firmly. “And there’s no one better than you. There never could be. What’s to talk about?”

“What’s to—” King laughs shakily and his fingers squeeze Ram’s arm so hard he suspects there’ll be bruises tomorrow. “I don’t know, Cool Boy. Commitment? Love? All those things that usually happen before a couple moves in together?”

“Oh, that.” Ram gently clasps King’s nervous fingers again to still them. “It did. Already. For me. If it hasn’t for you, we’ll just wait.” 

For the first time Ram can remember, King is the one who can’t speak.

  
  



	5. Puppy Love 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> King's phobia therapy has been going swimmingly. Until chance throws him into the deep end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't emulate anything King does around a frightened dog. You'll get your face bitten off, because real life is not fiction.

“You don’t have to do this,” Ram says.

“I know, Cool Boy.” King smiles at him across the coffee table where they’re having a casual breakfast, sitting cross-legged on floor cushions with mugs of tea and plates of omelet rice and steamed buns between them. “But I want to. I think I’m ready.” He holds out a hand in front of him, palm down. “See? Hardly shaking at all.”

Ram captures the hand in his and brings it to his lips. “I won’t let anything happen to you. And P'Apple has taken in foster dogs for years. If she says this little guy is a complete marshmallow, you can trust her.”

King drops his jaw in an expression of faux shock. “Wow, I think that might be the most words I’ve heard from you all at once.” He touches the back of his hand to Ram’s forehead. “Are you feverish?”

“Funny,” Ram says in a tone that clearly implies _no, you’re not._ But the corner of his mouth twitches with the effort to suppress a smile, and King leans over to kiss it. Ram makes a soft sound of appreciation and pulls him in, and for a few minutes breakfast is forgotten.

He now sleeps here more often than not but Ram isn’t officially living with King, not yet, despite his startling declaration several weeks ago. Well. Can it be called a declaration if he didn’t say the actual words? Perhaps not, but King could hear it clearly between the lines of what he did say, and it’s still there between the lines of his everyday acts of love and care. 

_“Commitment? Love? All those things that usually happen before a couple moves in together?”_

_“It did. Already. For me. If it hasn’t for you, we’ll just wait.”_

King has yet to respond in kind. He feels deeply—it shakes and scares him sometimes, how intensely he feels—but he’s too new to all this to rush into labeling it love. Overthinking everything is the God King’s brand, after all. How much of what he’s feeling is the thrill of new infatuation and powerful physical attraction? How much worse would it be to say the words and then have to retract them, if those feelings should fade when the newness does? If and when he says those words to Ram, it will be with the full force of certainty behind them.

“Mmm,” he murmurs against Ram’s cheek before he finally draws back to resume his breakfast. “If we didn’t already have this appointment…”

“After,” Ram says, his gaze dropping meaningfully down King’s body. 

“After,” King agrees.

~

The dog foster mom Apple lives in a charming old-fashioned home in Nonthaburi, an easy 20-minute bus ride from Bangkok, 19 minutes of which King spends holding Ram’s hand and practicing his relaxation and creative visualization techniques. The yard is bordered by an attractive but sturdy cedar plank fence too tall to be purely decorative, accessed through a series of two gates with a small holding area in between. Apple isn’t taking any chances on her foster dogs escaping.

 _Here we go,_ King thinks, holding tight to Ram as his boyfriend uses his free hand to open the first gate.

He’s been working through the steps of his self-prescribed desensitization and exposure therapy for weeks now, and overall he’s been pleased with his progress. He’s had some setbacks, to be sure, including a panic attack just last week when a mastiff rushed the fence of the dog park King was observing from outside the perimeter. He’d ended up sitting on the ground with his head between his knees, Ram rubbing soothing circles on his back and entreating him to breathe. But for each step back there have been two forward. King now reacts very little to photographs or video clips of calm dogs or happily playful ones. He doesn’t start to hyperventilate if a leashed dog is being walked toward them, provided the dog isn’t aggressive. He can even handle short walks with Ram and his dogs if Ram leashes them first, so long as King can keep slightly more than leash-length of distance between them. 

For their most recent date, Ram had texted him a rendezvous point for a hike, which proved to be an address King would recognize in his sleep: Sri Nakhon Khuean Khan Park. So enraptured by the botanical garden, King had lasted a full hour in proximity to Ram’s dogs before he had to call a halt. Ever thoughtful, Ram had arranged for his brother Ruj and Duen to collect the dogs when King hit his sticking point, spiriting them away in Bohn’s car so King and Ram could continue their park date alone.

Other than his grandmother facing down a vicious dog with nothing but a broom, King can’t think of a nicer thing anyone’s done for him in his entire life. His thank-you to Ram in bed that night had been so thorough he’d found a noise complaint from the neighbors taped to his door the next morning.

Apple’s yard is unoccupied but shows clear signs of dogs in residence, including a variety of dog toys, a dogwashing station, and two chainlink dog enclosures. King casts a wary look at the latter, but Ram notices and shakes his head.

“She’s only got the one foster puppy right now,” he says as he leads King to the front door, “and he’ll be in an enclosed room till you’re ready.”

When she answers the doorbell, Apple proves to be a lanky middle-aged woman with a runner’s build and a head of corkscrew salt-and-pepper hair barely restrained by a scrap of pink ribbon. She greets Ram with a genuine smile, but her cheeks are flushed and it’s obvious she’s flustered about something as she energetically waves them inside.

“So good to see you, Ram!” she exclaims. “It’s been awhile—since the pet adoption fair at the riverfront park, maybe? And you must be N’King,” she adds, acknowledging his wai of greeting. “Oh my goodness, aren’t you handsome? Come in, come in! Pippin is all ready to meet you, just as we arranged, but I have to warn you that something unexpected has just come up.”

Ram immediately places a protective arm around King’s shoulders. “Do we need to reschedule?” he asks.

Pausing in the middle of her living room, which is dominated by two overstuffed couches with pawprint-patterned slipcovers and a wall of dog photos—past fosters, King assumes—Apple turns up her hands in a gesture of uncertainty. 

“It’s totally up to you two,” she says. “The situation is that I’ve gotten an emergency call to take in another foster dog, a crisis case, and they’ll be arriving very soon. But you two could go ahead and sequester yourselves with Pippin just like we planned. You’d never even need to see the other dog. I’d intended to supervise your encounter myself, King, but honestly Ram is every bit as qualified as me if not more so. He’s had the same training from our dog rescue group, and he’s done temperament testing for new shelter dogs too, haven’t you, Ram?”

Ram nods, and King relaxes a bit more under the comforting weight of his boyfriend’s arm. “Everything is set?” he asks Apple.

“Exactly as we discussed,” she confirms. “Pip has been fed, exercised, and played with to get all his zoomies out—well, as much as is possible with a two-month-old puppy. And this is typically the time of day he’s worn out and nappish, so it’s really ideal.”

After just a moment’s deliberation, King jerks his chin up in assent. “Let’s do it,” he says, “and thank you, P'Apple.”

The foster caregiver’s answering smile is aimed at Ram. “Thank this guy. He’s the one who worked out every detail, once he found out I had the right dog for you. Right this way,” she adds, beckoning them to follow her down a short hallway to a closed door. She pushes it open and steps aside. “Good luck, boys. I’ll check in with you later after I’ve gotten my new arrival settled in.”

At first King just stands in the doorway taking in the scene. It’s a small room, probably intended as a nursery or home office when the house was built, and King sees that it actually is a nursery of sorts—just not for a human baby. The floor is strewn with balls, chew toys, and stuffies, there’s a fleece-lined dog bed in each corner and a dog-sized loveseat under the window, and in the middle of the room is a dog crate with a ridiculously tiny bundle of fluff sound asleep inside.

“Ready?” Ram prompts.

“Ready,” King agrees, taking a decisive step forward into the room as Ram closes the door behind them.

From across the room all King could see was a small bundle of cream-colored fur with spots of golden brown. As he steps closer, though, and the tiny animal stirs and lifts its head…

“That’s not a dog,” King blurts out, “that’s a teddy bear!”

The little creature blinks its button eyes and yawns, its muzzle opening wide to reveal pearly white baby teeth too small to harm anything larger than a mouse. It tilts its head inquisitively at the two young men approaching its crate, tentatively wagging a fuzzy tail no longer than a pencil.

“Pippin is a Cavachon,” Ram says, kneeling down to offer the pup his fingers to sniff through the metal bars of the crate. “Mix between a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel and a Bichon Frise. Designer dogs. Popular. But this one was born sickly. The runt. So the breeder dumped him.” 

“Is he OK now?” Curious, King kneels too, struck by wonderment that this tiny creature—smaller than a cat, smaller than many of the stuffed toys in the room—should be the same species as the 60-kilo giant mastiff that had scared him a few days before. His mind can no more associate this scrap of fluff with the savage animal that attacked him than the dog-shaped cookies he’d eaten.

“He’s good, aren’t you, Pippin?” With a glance at King for his OK, Ram unfastens the latch of the dog crate’s door and reaches in to lift the little dog out. He cradles it against his chest, smiling into its soft rumpled fur. “P'Apple nursed him back to health,” he explains. “Bottle feeding him puppy milk replacer every two or three hours around the clock.”

“Have you done that?” Tentatively King reaches out to stroke Pippin’s back. The fur is baby soft to the touch, like a downy chick. 

“Not with a newborn like Pippin was,” Ram says. “My dog Balto was a rescue puppy but he was six weeks old. Already weaning age.”

Pippin licks at Ram’s chin, bringing a smile to King’s face. Ram looks at him over the top of the puppy’s head and raises his eyebrows questioningly. In answer, King seats himself cross-legged on the floor and holds out his arms.

“Puppy me,” he says.

It’s anticlimactic, but in a good way. Ram places the scant warm weight of the puppy in his arms, King carefully cradles it to his chest, and little Pippin just wriggles a few times before falling sound asleep. It’s not much different than holding a stuffed animal except for the little dog’s body heat.

Ram, his expression so tender that he’s nearly as cute as the pup, proceeds to snap a whole series of photos with his phone, immediately uploading the best to social media. It’s so un-Ramlike that King can’t help laughing.

“You’re like a proud new father,” he jokes. “Get in the picture, Dad, take a family photo.” 

Ram does, and King fully intends to frame a set of the best shots because they’re all so sweet it’s like mainlining sugar. When King’s arms tire, Ram ends up with the puppy in a football hold, paws up, its little tongue lolling out in sleep as King pets its round belly.

“What’s next?” Ram asks once they’ve settled the sleeping pup back into its crate and secured the door. They’re both standing and stretching, and it’s as easy as breathing for King to step forward into Ram’s arms. 

“In the phobia treatment? More dog encounters, mostly,” King says, resting his head on Ram’s shoulder in relief that it’s all gone so well. “Bigger dogs in a less controlled environment. Eventually the dog park, I guess, and maybe helping you feed some of your strays.”

“Thank you,” Ram says softly. He brings a hand up to caress King’s cheek, his thumb gently circling King’s cheekbone. “I know you’re doing this for me. I know it hasn’t been easy.”

“Mm. You’d do the same for me, right?” King says, pressing a quick kiss to Ram’s mouth. “If you’d had a childhood incident with a giant carnivorous plant?”

“Of course. I’d be covered in fronds right now, trying not to scream.”

King snickers. “Why does that sound so kinky?”

“Because you’re a plant pervert,” Ram sighs. “Ready to go home?”

 _I am home,_ King thinks from the circle of his arms. But aloud he simply says, “Sure. Let’s find P'Apple and thank her, though. I have a donation for the rescue too.”

Back in the hallway and then in the living room, they see no sign of their host. “P'Apple?” Ram calls out. But King puts a restraining hand on his arm.

“Listen,” he says, and Ram goes obediently still.

_“Awoo-ooo…”_

It’s the faintest of cries, barely audible, but it’s so lost and frightened that it sends a shiver of sadness through King’s body. 

It’s followed by a tiny, forlorn whimper.

“Is it a dog?” King asks softly.

“I think it must be,” Ram murmurs back. By unspoken assent they silently follow the sound, heading toward the screen door that opens into the yard.

_“..woo...a-a-a-wooooo….”_

They find Apple sitting on the front steps, sad-faced and still, chin in her hands and elbows on her knees. She’s staring across the yard at a cluster of shrubbery, the source of the small mournful sounds.

“The idiots brought her without a crate,” Apple says quietly as Ram and King seat themselves on the step on either side of her, “and she slipped her leash. There’s nothing be afraid of, though. She’s not aggressive. She’s just scared.”

Another tiny whimper, so like a sob.

“Is she hurt?” King whispers.

Apple nods. “She’s been treated, though, including painkillers, so she’s not in immediate danger. But her head and throat are bandaged, with stitches underneath, and her ears are wrapped too.”

_“...w-w-woo-ooo…”_

Beside her Ram makes a low, angry sound. “Bait dog?”

“We think so, yes.” Apple continues to gaze toward the shrubs. “I’m letting her tire herself out and then I’ll try to lure her out with food. You two can go out the side gate, I’ve got this.”

“What’s a bait dog?” King asks.

Ram is shaking his head frantically but Apple’s head is turned toward King as she answers, “A dog to train other dogs for illegal fighting rings. One that’s too scared to fight back and hurt the moneymakers.”

_“Awroo-oooo…”_

“Oh no,” breathes King. “Oh no, oh no, no no _no._ ”

Out of the corner of his eye he sees Ram getting to his feet, reaching for him, but the unseen dog is whimpering again and King is up too and moving fast, without conscious volition—not away from the sound but toward it.

“Nong!”

“P’King, no!”

But King is quick and agile, and he’s dropping to his knees beside the bushes before either of them can stop him. He feels like he’s moving through a dream, the images in his head and the sounds in the here and now overlapping in his mind in ways that shake him to his core. It’s hurt. It’s hurt and he’s hurt, it’s crying and he’s crying, he smells blood, there’s _blood_ , he remembers it and _feels_ it sliding down his neck and arm as real as though it happened seconds ago.

“Little one,” he’s crooning even as he elbows his own boyfriend in the stomach to shake him off. “Little one, it’s OK, little one, don’t cry, please don’t cry. I’m here. I’m here.” 

He’s on the ground, flat on his belly now, only vaguely aware of Ram’s hands trying again to restrain him and his grandmother—no, Apple—crying out a warning as he worms his way under the shrubbery, making sounds very like the unseen dog’s.

“They won’t hurt you,” he sobs, barely recognizing his own voice. “They won’t hurt you, I promise, I won’t let them hurt you.” 

_“P’King, be careful!”_ Ram sounds frantic, frightened, and a rational part of King’s mind understands why—even a gentle animal will attack when cornered and scared, and this dog must be both. But somehow in this instant Ram is less real than King’s remembered terror, the resurrected memory of writhing away from the pain to crawl under—under—

 _A wagon._ He’d had a wagon, a little red wagon, and tried to hide under it while his grandmother beat the attacking dog with her broom.

King’s whole body is wracked with sobs now as he hauls himself another few centimeters forward, the branches of the bush gouging his back, until one hand makes contact with the shivering flanks of the frightened dog. 

He lies down beside it and cries like the child he once was. 

He fully expects to be bitten—no, fully believes in this instant that he _has_ been bitten, so vivid is the grip of that terrible memory. But the dog has been bitten too, and without him it will be crying alone in the dirt. 

“—not going to _fit_ under there, Ram!” he hears Apple shout as he rests his cheek on the cowering dog’s back, his hands petting and soothing, his voice crooning.

_“Then break it! Cut it!”_

“It’s OK, it’s all OK,” he sing-songs to the dog. “They’re friends. They’re good. They love us. Shhh. Shhh, shhh. It’s OK.”

Ram will tell him, much later, that from a dog behavioral standpoint absolutely everything he did was wrong. That he’s lucky not to have had his throat torn out by the terrified animal’s fangs. But in the moment King simply knows that it won’t. Where that knowledge came from not even his ridiculous I.Q. can explain; it’s just a certainty that suffuses his entire body, more akin to a religious experience than anything based in logic and reason. 

By the time Ram successfully breaks the lower branches and hauls King out by his ankles, his entire upper body is wrapped around the shivering dog, which is tucked under his chin and clasped closely in his arms as though his body could magically protect it from hurts that have already taken place. Which some fraction of King’s mind recognizes as insane. Magical thinking writ large. But King is still half out of his own body, caught in a strange dreamworld that’s woven of equal parts concrete reality, traumatic memory, and utterly groundless optimism, so he hugs the dog tight to him and _hopes_.

The dog doesn’t bite him. 

Ram hauls him out feet first.

Apple promptly throws a blanket over both the sobbing King and the trembling dog, wrapping them up tightly and shoving them bodily into Ram’s arms.

When sanity returns—it takes at least twenty minutes—King is very, very tired, Ram is still mute with fury, the dog is revealed to be a mid-sized mongrel of dubious and undistinguished parentage, and Apple has adjourned to the kitchen to fetch a bottle of hard liquor because, she proclaims, “it’s the only stupid thing we _haven’t_ done yet.” She also brings a soapy washcloth and a soft towel so Ram can begin to clean the yard filth off King’s tearstained face and bramble-scratched arms.

“Well,” King says as his face is wiped clean by a boyfriend whose face resembles an angry stone idol, “I guess I have a dog now.”

“You _idiot_ ,” Ram growls.

“I’m going to call her Tough Girl,” King adds. “Tuffy for short.” He closes his eyes, wondering which of them is the more exhausted. “Cool Boy?”

“What?” grumbles Ram.

“I love you. Wanna move in with me and Tuffy and ninety-five plants?”

Silence. 

Then, barely audible: “Don’t ever scare me like that again.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

“OK then.” Another beat of silence. “I love you too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [The Cavachon](https://www.ebknows.com/cavachon-puppy/) is a mix between two popular breeds, the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel and the Bichon Frise. The pups really do look like teddy bears!


	6. Better Homes & Gardens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> King and Ram discuss dogs, domestic details, and dark desires.

“Do you think she needs another blankie?” King asks anxiously.

Apple casts an amused but kindly glance his way. “N’King, if Tuffy had one more blanket or pillow in there she’d have to audition for The Princess and the Pea. She’s fine, Nong.”

Hunkered down beside Tuffy’s crate in Apple’s spare bedroom, King pokes a finger through the metal grid of the door to stroke the mongrel’s muzzle. Tuffy gives the canine equivalent of a world-weary sigh and licks him before closing her eyes again. 

Ram had to explain to King that no, he can’t take an injured and traumatized foster dog home with no training or preparation even if the rescue group would allow it, which they won’t. So King had to settle for working out a detailed visitation schedule with Apple, which she obligingly recorded in her calendar app and King logged in his head. 

Emotional exhaustion is catching up with him now, though, and he doesn’t resist when Ram reaches down to lift him up bodily by his elbows and sets him on his feet. King staggers against him and is immediately steadied by a strong arm around his waist.

“I ordered a GrabTaxi,” Ram says. “It’ll get us home quicker. You need a shower and rest.”

King nuzzles into his neck gratefully. “I’m sorry it won’t be the night we planned.”

A big hand ruffles his hair and King feels a kiss pressed to the top of his head. “It’s better. I got a new dog and a live-in boyfriend.”

“Hey, Tuffy is _my_ dog,” King protests.

“If we’re living together, what’s mine is yours,” Ram says, “and what’s yours is mine. Right? The cab is here,” he adds, nudging King toward the door.

Apple gives them both a hug before they exit through the gate. “Goodbye for now, boys,” she says. “N’King, I’ll send you a bedtime photo from Tuffy later.”

King halts at that and turns to Ram. “Can I borrow your shirt?” he asks urgently, tugging at the flannel shirt Ram is wearing open over a tee. 

“Sure. Are you cold?” Ram looks perplexed, as the late afternoon heat has barely begun to subside with the setting sun.

“No, but I’m about to be half naked.” Swiftly King takes hold of the bottom of his own t-shirt and yanks it off over his head, holding it out to Apple. “Put this in Tuffy’s crate, na?” he asks as Ram wraps the flannel shirt around his shoulders. “So she can smell me.”

Apple laughs but accepts the shirt, shaking her head at both of them. “You’re so extra, you two. See you soon, Nongs.”

King shrugs his arms into the shirtsleeves and holds obligingly still for Ram to button him up, noticing his boyfriend’s eyes darken as his fingers brush the V of bare skin at King’s throat. Suddenly he’s not quite so tired. He leans close to Ram’s ear and murmurs, “Do you like seeing me in your shirt?”

Ram’s only answer is a little growling noise as he grabs King’s hand to haul him to the taxi.

Five minutes into the ride, though, King hears a notification beep from his phone.  
  


**Cool Boyfriend**  
Yes.  
I want you in nothing but that shirt.  


King lets his head drop onto Ram’s shoulder, whispering distance so their driver can’t hear. “What would you do?”  
  


**Cool Boyfriend**  
Kiss my way down your body  
unbuttoning it as I go.  
…  
Push it off your shoulders &  
down your back while  
  


King swallows hard. “While _what?_ ” he breathes into Ram’s ear. “Cool Boy. That’s an incomplete sentence.”

But Ram just shakes his head and puts the phone back in his pocket, leaning his head against King’s without another word spoken or texted. King is mildly surprised but figures Ram may feel uncomfortable sexting in a vehicle with a stranger driving. So he just snuggles close and lets his eyelids flutter shut, drifting into a light doze for the remainder of the trip. His mind has a lot to process from the day.

At the condo Ram remains quiet, but that’s not exactly uncharacteristic for Ram. He lets King shower alone, though, which lately is _very_ uncharacteristic for Ram, and when King emerges wearing nothing but his chrysanthemum-print kimono robe left open over boxer shorts, Ram doesn’t let his eyes drop below King’s chin. Something is definitely wrong. 

Ram holds up the first-aid kit with one hand and motions him to the sofa with the other. Obligingly King sits beside him and rolls up the robe sleeves to reveal the bramble scratches on his arms from his dive under Apple’s shrubbery. They’re shallow and the shower cleaned them well, so Ram just dabs them with antibiotic ointment. 

“Now your back,” he says, making a circling motion to indicate King should turn around. King does, twisting around on the sofa cushions and shrugging the robe off his shoulders, letting the chrysanthemum silk pool at his waist.

Ram sucks in his breath in a hiss.

Startled, King casts a glance back over his shoulder. ”Is it that bad? It doesn’t hurt much and what I could see in the bathroom mirror didn’t look too deep.”

“No, I just—no.” Ram presses a warm palm between his shoulder blades in reassurance. “It’s not bad.”

“What is it, then?”

“Nothing.” He begins to apply the ointment again, his touch firm but gentle.

“Cool Boy,” King says, “if we’re going to live together you can’t ‘nothing’ me when it’s clearly something.”

Ram strokes both hands up his sides, where the skin is unscratched, and leans in to kiss his nape. “It’s nothing,” he repeats. “You took my breath away, that’s all. You always do.”

 _Oh._ Immediately King’s mind makes a connection to Ram’s sudden silence in the car. “You like my back, Cool Boy? Even scratched up?” 

“Every part of you is beautiful.” Ram eases the robe back into place, careful to lift it over the scratches rather than drag the material across them. “I just...like seeing clothes slide off you. Especially your back.”

Something tells King not to turn around yet as he asks softly, “Why especially that?” 

Ram makes a low impatient sound. “Too many words,” he says.

“I like your words. They’re rare and that makes them precious, so forgive me when I try to tease more of them from you.” King leans back against him, feeling Ram’s breath on his neck. The computer portion of his brain has been doing some cross-referencing and served up an interesting fact that might be relevant. “Cool Boy, you haven’t taken me from behind yet. Is that something you’ve been wanting?”

His boyfriend goes very still, which is an answer in itself. So is the careful, oddly stilted way he enunciates his words as he replies, “I like seeing your face when we make love.”

“Me too,” King agrees. “Not what I asked, though.” 

Ram’s lips brush the sensitive spot behind his ear. “Don’t,” he says.

“Don’t make you say? Cool Boy, that’s a pretty clear Yes. Why be shy? It’s just another position to try, right? You weren’t shy asking me to ride you the other night.” 

WIth a frustrated groan Ram pulls away, and when King turns he sees that his Cool Boy has reached for his phone again. He does this less as time goes on but when he’s emotional, King has noticed, he tends to find it easier than talking. He picks up his own phone from the coffee table to await the message that Ram seems to be starting and stopping.

 **Cool Boyfriend** **  
** I’m afraid I’ll hurt you if I  
can’t see your beautiful face.  
…  
You deserve better.  
  


King stares first at the screen, then at Ram, who’s avoiding his eyes. “Hurt me? You would never hurt me. Why would you think that?”  
  


**Cool Boyfriend** **  
** When I imagine it, it’s never  
gentle, it’s like animals. Just  
fucking. Just taking. Hard. Fast.  
I don’t want to use you that way.  
  


The sound startled out of King is a sharp, needy whine, unmistakably a sound of desire, not disgust or fear. “Fuck. Have you really—” He scrambles in his haste to straddle Ram’s lap, gathering him close. “Oh, Cool Boy. You’ve worried about that? Felt ashamed for wanting that?” He frames Ram’s face with his hands, angling it so Ram is forced to meet his gaze. “Be honest with me.”

He sees Ram’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallows hard. “Yes.”

King shakes his head, uncertain whether he wants to kiss him or slap him. “Ram. For fuck’s sake. I _grow_ delicate flowers, I’m not one myself. OK?” His hands tighten around Ram’s face, not enough to hurt but firm enough to send a message. _Pay attention here._ “If you think I’d hate the idea of you holding me down and fucking me like a wild beast, you are very, _very_ wrong. And if I weren’t so tired I’d prove it right now.”

He watches the confused play of emotions cross Ram’s face, desire and hope and shame, and half expects Ram to push him aside to communicate by text again. Instead he slumps against the back of the sofa, pulling King with him in a tangle of bodies and limbs that’s more puppy pile than lover’s embrace.

“I love you,” Ram says against the inky silk of King’s hair. “I don’t want to be rough with you.”

King sighs against his chest. “Well, obviously you do want to. But you think you shouldn’t. Is it because I’m smaller than you? You think I’m too delicate?”

A silence.

“Too precious. Too important.”

“Well, that’s just bullshit.” He feels Ram’s body tense and gropes for his hand, squeezing it to reassure him. “Cool Boy, I love you too. You’re important too. But that’s got fuck-all to do with how hard we bone.”

“King…”

“I’m serious here! I’m not made of glass and you’re not going to break me. And I’ve got a voice, right? I can tell you if I’m not comfortable with something—if you just talk to me about it. Or text. Draw me a picture, write me a sticky note. Hell, learn semaphore and wave flags at me, I don’t care. Just don’t leave me in the dark.”

Ram makes a distressed sound. “I’m trying.” The strain in his voice tells King the rest: _I’m trying but it’s hard for me._

“I know, sweetness.” The endearment comes to his lips unbidden and he feels Ram’s fingers tighten on his in response. “I’ll help however I can, just—don’t keep things from me, OK? And don’t make decisions by yourself that should be made together.”

To his surprise, Ram chuckles. “Like adopting a dog?”

“Fuck. Busted. Mea culpa.” King bumps his head against Ram’s chest in silent apology. “Do you mind?”

“No. Tuffy needed you.” Ram pauses, and King silently counts the seconds till he speaks again, the way he might between a lightning flash and its thunder. “You meant it? About living together?”

“Yeah. I know it’s soon, but...Cool Boy, this afternoon when you asked if I was ready to go home, I just knew.”

“Knew what?”

“That home is us together. That home is you.”

Ram’s answer isn’t verbal, but King understands it perfectly.

~

“You’re not asleep,” Ram murmurs into the darkness.

“Mm. Thinking too hard.”

They’re lying entangled on King’s bed—their bed now, King supposes—where they relocated after an exhausted King nearly fell asleep kissing on the sofa. After the third apologetic yawn Ram had just laughed and picked him up bodily to transport him to the bedroom. But now that they’re here, sleep is proving surprisingly elusive.

“About what?”

“A little of everything. Tuffy. Moving-in logistics. Sex. Plants. I get a little stuck in my own head sometimes,” he admits.

Ram presses a kiss to his shoulder, where the loose neck of his oversized sleep shirt has slipped down to reveal his scars. “It’s a busy place, your head.”

“Yeah. Usually I can just assign my subconscious the job of processing things—like little subroutines to run, you know? But sometimes it all gets jumbled and stuck at the conscious level.”

“I don’t really understand that. But can I help?”

King’s laugh is low and sleepy. “Sure. Help me figure out how to dogproof the condo so I don’t get stressed about plants getting destroyed.”

Ram hums thoughtfully, his fingers tapping a light rhythm on King’s hip. “More wall brackets and hooks for hanging plants,” he suggests, “and weighting or floor anchors for the standing ones. We should look up if anything is toxic for dogs.”

“A couple of them are. The fiddle leaf fig and the sago palm.”

“Oh, you already researched it?”

“Not exactly. It was already in my head, I just retrieved it. I read up on each of my plants when I bring home the first seeds or cuttings. Ram...”

“Hm?”

“Do we need a bigger place? You, me, Tuffy...and what about your dogs? Don’t you want them with you?” It’s a sensitive subject, he knows; Ram’s dogs are now back at his family’s home with his brother, with Ram limiting his visits to times he knows his father isn’t present.

Ram is silent for a moment, the tapping fingers first going still and then slipping under King’s sleep shirt to stroke his belly. “My dogs need a lot of space to be happy and healthy,” he says finally, “and Ruj would be sad if I took them away for good. That’s why I let him take them home.”

“How much space?”

“More like Apple’s. A house with a fenced yard. They’re a working breed. They need plenty of exercise and activity or they get destructive.” 

King’s many broken flowerpots could attest to that, but he doesn’t say so; he knows Ram feels badly enough about that already. “We’re not going to be able to afford a place like that as students,” he says softly. “I’m sorry.”

“I know.” The hand on King’s belly strokes upward, finding a nipple to tease. _I’m his fidget toy,_ King thinks, not unkindly. “Maybe someday.”

“Someday,” he agrees, carefully not commenting on the fact that they’re now both alluding to years into the future. “For now, though...if you move in, we could probably afford a bigger place, maybe at ground level with a patio. That’d be nice for the plants and Tuffy.”

“When,” Ram says firmly. His hand drifts to the other nipple to continue its teasing. “Not if.”

King makes a pleased little sound, both at the desire in that low voice and the continued attention of Ram’s exploring fingers. “Yes.”

“If there are big windows, I could build you greenhouse shelves. With a clear acrylic panel that shuts to keep the plants safe.” Ram is pushing the t-shirt up now, shifting position to place his lips where his fingers have been. 

“ _Yes_.” King’s breath comes out ragged, wanting. “Any... _unghh_...other home decorating ideas you want to share?”

Ram pauses in his nibbling and suckling just long enough to say, “Lots of comfortable furniture to fuck on.”

“Good idea,” King says faintly. “Very good. Pin that one. Or, you know. Me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is mostly domestic fluff, but you know King isn't going to forget Ram's little confession. So stay tuned. ;)


	7. I Bloom for You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's King's birthday, and Ram has managed to arrange the perfect surprise.  
> Too bad it smells like rotten meat.

“Baby, why are you _crying?_ ” Ram asks helplessly. “What did I do wrong? I thought you’d like it.”

King says something in reply, but he’s still sobbing into Ram’s shoulder so he’s difficult to understand until he raises his head and wipes ineffectually at his tear-streaked cheeks with the back of his hand. “Like it? I love it. That’s why I’m crying!”

At a complete loss, Ram turns to actions instead of words. He leads King to the sofa, sits him down, and hunts up a tissue to dry his eyes before settling down next to him in anxious bewilderment.

“Explain,” he says.

Before replying, King climbs into his lap and twines his arms around Ram’s neck to plant a lingering kiss on his lips. Relieved if not yet enlightened, Ram sighs into the kiss and slides a hand into King’s hair to cradle the back of his head. All is well, then. Whatever the reason for the tears, King isn’t unhappy.

If he were prone to introspection (he’s not), Ram would probably dwell on how quickly King’s happiness has become essential to his own. But there are more compelling things to think about in this moment, like the faint jasmine scent of King’s body and the sweet warmth of his mouth, which tastes of the tangerine he was eating at breakfast when Ram unveiled his birthday surprise. 

“Do you know,” King says finally, “what my last girlfriend gave me for my birthday when we were together?”

Ram shakes his head, because of course he doesn’t. He’s aware that King had a serious girlfriend in high school and a casual one at university last year, and that he is King’s first relationship with another man. But that’s as much information as they’ve exchanged about their romantic pasts. Ram thinks retroactive jealousy is a ridiculous concept but he’s not keen on hearing a lot of details either. 

“A Siam Center gift card,” King says. “Which is fine, right? It’s the thought that counts. But it’s hard to think of anything more generic except money. But you…” He tips his forehead to touch Ram’s. “Cool Boy, how did you even hear about the Rafflesia plant? Much less know that it’d be a special treat for me to see one in flower?”

Ram kisses the tip of his nose, relaxing as he understands at last. “Just luck,” he admits. “I was looking up rare plants of Thailand to find something I could buy for your birthday.”

“OK, but how the _hell_ did that translate into an invitation to visit the private conservatory of Bangkok’s richest plant connoisseur? Sumali Sae Li is practically a recluse!” 

With a shrug, Ram gently disentangles and shifts King to his own sofa cushion. “More luck. Here, I’ll show you…” Pulling out his phone, he brings up the bookmarked post in the Bangkok Floraphile Forum and turns the screen toward King.   
  


> **HeLovesPlantsILoveHim says:**  
>  _My boyfriend loves plants so much he calls them his children and talks to them like friends._
> 
> _I want to get him one that’s rare & special for his birthday but I’m clueless. Can you help??   
>    
>  _

“After three or four people told me what a nice sweet girl I was, I outed myself,” Ram says, scrolling down to point out a reply.  
  


> **HeLovesPlantsILoveHim says:**  
>  _To be honest I’m a man & not sweet or nice either. But he is. _
> 
> _He deserves something precious & beautiful like him. _

> **Fleur-de-lis says:  
>  ** _Check your DMs. I may have a suggestion for you._

“No way,” King breathes. “No fucking way. Fleur-de-lis is _Sumali Sae Li?_ I swear I would never tell,” he adds hastily, seeing Ram’s look of alarm. “But is he?”

Ram nods, although he’s still at a loss to understand King’s astonishment. What’s so amazing about a plant enthusiast, even a rich one, frequenting a plant forum? “I guess so? Here, let me show you what he sent.” He taps the icon for the forum’s private message center to reveal his exchange with Fleur-de-lis.  
  


**Fleur-de-lis**  
I don’t have a suggestion for a plant  
to buy your lover. However, I might  
have something even better.  
[giantbeauty.jpg]

 **HeLovesPlantsILoveHim**  
What IS that? It looks like it came  
from an alien world.

 **Fleur-de-lis**  
Rafflesia, the world’s largest flower.  
It blooms rarely and unpredictably  
but the one in my private collection  
is nearly ready to open. If your lover  
is a true enthusiast, seeing it would  
be a rare gift.

  
“And then he asked for my phone number,” Ram explains, “and his personal assistant got in touch with the details. She texted me this morning to say that it opened last night and we should come to see it as soon as possible. P’King, do you need a drink of water? You look like you’re going to pass out.”

“I just might. My god, Cool Boy, you can’t even imagine how thrilling this is for me! We’re really going? Today?” 

Ram nods but saves the details until he’s fetched the glass of water and watched King take several sips, color gradually returning to his face. Only then does he confirm, “Yes, really. Yes, today. They’re sending a car to pick us up after lunch. We have to— _unnhh,_ King! Baby, what are you—?”

“Thanking you for my present,” King says, pushing him onto his back on the sofa cushions. 

~

The car is a black limousine driven by a smiling Isan chauffeur who introduces himself as Pongsit and doesn’t blink at their linked hands or the solicitous way Ram ushers King into the car. As they settle into the passenger compartment—King bouncing up and down on the luxurious leather seats with the glee of a small child on his way to the Dream World amusement park—Ram notices that each door sports a tiny bud vase with sprigs of real flowers. He plucks one from its container to tuck it behind King’s ear.

“Happy birthday,” he murmurs, closing his hands on King’s shoulders to hold him still for a kiss to the cheek. “You look so excited. You’re shining like the sun.”

King beams at him and squeezes his hand exuberantly. “You have no idea what a big deal this is, Cool Boy. Sumali Sae Li’s plant collection is _legendary._ Hardly anyone gets to see it. One day a year he opens his estate for a fundraiser to benefit horticultural habitat preservation, but the tickets start at fifty thousand baht just to wander the gardens—I could never afford that, much less the exclusive tier to go into the conservatory where the really rare plants are kept.”

Ram cocks his head quizzically. “Why would he just invite us, then?”

“I have no idea. It does seem odd, doesn’t it? I’m half convinced I’m dreaming, but if I am don’t wake me up, OK?”

After a twenty-minute drive through increasingly affluent neighborhoods, they reach a palatial walled estate where a pair of wrought-iron gates decorated with a lotus-blossom pattern slide silently open as the car approaches. Pongsit the chauffeur drives them past the main house and down a narrow side lane lined with ratchaphruek trees, finally braking smoothly to a stop before a giant glass conservatory that looks better suited to Victorian England than suburban Bangkok. 

King, while clearly still excited, has grown quieter even as his eyes grow wider. When Ram takes his hand again to help him from the car, his palm is sweaty. He supposes this visit is King’s equivalent of meeting royalty or a film star, and he fervently hopes the man will be kind. Surely he will? That they’re here at all is an act of unfathomable kindness to a complete stranger.

Awaiting them inside is a small, whipcord-thin elderly man in gardening overalls, who Ram would’ve taken for one of the help if he didn’t see King immediately bow in the most respectful of wais, hands held so high his fingertips are just below his eyes. Ram hastily follows suit.

“Sawatdee khrab, Khun Sumali,” he says. “Thank you for inviting us.”

The older man inclines his head, quietly assessing them both before replying to Ram. His face is wizened but his eyes are bright with curiosity. “You must be N’Ram,” he says, his voice low and his diction precise. “Welcome to my conservatory.” His gaze shifts to King, who’s practically trembling with excitement, eyes darting past their host to the leafy wonders beyond. “And this is the young man who considers plants his children?”

Something peculiar and intense in his tone, while not at all hostile, triggers Ram’s protectiveness and he instinctively reaches for King, slipping a sheltering arm around his waist. “Yes, Khun Sumali,” he says. “This is my P’King.”

To his surprise, the old man’s face brightens with an approving smile. “I feel much the same about my plants,” he informs King. “That they are family to me. Wise elders, siblings, friends, children. Come, let me introduce you.” And he beckons them forward onto a pebbled path.

The conservatory is immense, comprising the main Victorian-era building plus several adjoining wings of newer construction. Ram is qualified only to say that it is very beautiful and full of plants. The rest he leaves to King, who quickly gravitates to their host’s side as the two begin to speak a horticultural language Ram can’t follow. He doesn’t mind. He just trails in their wake, watching their elderly tour guide reveal a seemingly endless series of botanic wonders to a rapt and glowing King.

 _He’s never been more beautiful,_ Ram thinks, content to hang back and drink in the sight of King experiencing what must be his personal vision of heaven. He leaps forward only once, when King stumbles over a length of irrigation hose.

“Careful,” he says fondly, steadying his boyfriend with his strong right arm. King startles, and Ram can’t help laughing at his surprise. “You forgot I was here, didn’t you?” he teases, and sees their host hiding a smile behind an upraised hand.

“Of course not,” King protests unconvincingly.

“Liar.” Ram releases him. “Go on. Enjoy your conversation with Khun Sumali. You’ll see plenty of me later.” 

“Your beloved is astonishingly well versed in botany,” the elderly man tells Ram as King hastens back to his side. “I don’t think I’ve ever met so young a person with as encyclopedic a knowledge of the Kingdom Plantae.”

“P’King is always hungry for knowledge,” Ram says, feeling an absurd secondhand pride. 

The Rafflesia resides in an adjacent greenhouse, where the odor of rotting meat immediately assails their noses. “Some call it the Corpse Flower,” Sumali Sae Li explains in answer to Ram’s surprised look, “but I find that uncharitable. It’s a strong scent to be sure but a flower that blooms so rarely must announce itself. Come, step this way and enjoy.” 

Ram isn’t sure “enjoy” is quite the right word for a plant so pungent, but King obviously disagrees. When he sees the giant red flower he gives an exclamation of sheer delight and drops to his knees before it as though in worship. 

It is impressive to be sure, Ram has to concede, nearly a meter in diameter with five speckled red petals and a hollow center that looks large enough to hold a mixing bowl. The petals are thick, almost leathery. He’s not sure he’d call it beautiful but King clearly would; already he’s greeting it like a long-lost relative.

Stepping back a few paces, Ram gets out his phone to photograph the ecstatic King, casting a quick querying look at Khun Sumali for permission. The elderly man nods and comes to stand beside him as he captures multiple shots of his boyfriend communing with his birthday surprise. Ram knows he must look ridiculous; he can feel the silly fond smile tugging his lips upward. But King is so radiant in his happiness that Ram can’t help but respond.

“Your username on the forum was true,” Sumali Sae Li says quietly. “He truly does love plants, and you clearly love him.” Again there’s a tone in his voice that Ram doesn’t entirely understand, although this time it triggers no protective instinct. The elderly man sounds almost...sad?

“Forever,” says Ram. 

“Ah. Well. Perhaps, perhaps not. We are not always granted forever, my young friend, no matter how much we might desire it.” 

Ram gives him a sidelong look and sees tears in his eyes. And understands, suddenly, why they were invited here. 

“Who was he?” he asks. “Your King?”

The old man is silent for a long while, and when he speaks his voice is tremulous. “His name was Chati. Appropriate, since he was my life, although precious few ever knew that. We came of age in a very different time, you understand. He died of pancreatic cancer fifteen years ago.”

“My condolences, Khun Sumali.”

“Thank you. You remind me of him, a bit.”

“I do?”

“Mm.” The old man ducks his head, dabbing discreetly at his eyes with a handkerchief that he produces from a pocket of his overalls. “Not in appearance. But he too was a man of few words, indifferent to plants himself but indulgent of one who loved them.” He lets out a shaky sigh. “Treasure each of your days, N’Ram, because none of us know the number of our years. Treasure your beloved too.”

“I will. I do.” Ram looks past him to King, who’s holding his nose to put his face practically inside the flower’s bowl-like center. “Thank you again for inviting us here. He’ll never forget it,” he adds truthfully, and in saying so he’s struck by a sudden inspiration. “Khun Sumali, do you have a photograph of Chati?”

In answer, the elder brings a withered hand to the neckline of the simple cotton shirt he wears under his gardening overalls and tugs out what Ram first assumes is a pocket watch but proves to be a large silver locket on a sturdy chain. He triggers the clasp with his thumbnail to open it and angles the locket toward Ram.

“P’King,” Ram calls to his boyfriend, who looks up at the urgency in his voice. “Come here.”

King complies at once, looking curiously from Ram to their host, clearly sensing but not understanding the solemnity in the air. “What is it, Cool Boy?” he asks.

“Something for you to see,” Ram says. “Something to _remember._ Tell him,” he urges their host as King cups the open locket in one palm and examines it closely.

“That’s Chati, who was my love,” the old man says simply. 

The man in the photograph has a round face and kind eyes, and although he’s far from handsome his smile is joyful and beautiful. Ram watches as King’s eyes flicker over the photograph, up to the elder man’s face, and back to the locket again.

“I’ll remember,” King says, releasing it, and nods to Ram in a way that he somehow understands as permission.

“He won’t just remember,” Ram tells the old man. “He’ll remember _perfectly,_ for as long as he lives. It’s a talent he has. A gift.”

Khun Sumali’s hands are shaking as he closes the locket and carefully tucks it back under the neckline of his shirt again, and he has to clear his throat three times before he speaks again. 

“Come this way, N’King,” he says gruffly. “If you’re done admiring the Rafflesia, I have a collection of rare orchids to show you.”

Their leavetaking outside the conservatory an hour later is brief but heartfelt, with the old man clapping a hand to Ram’s shoulder with unexpected vigor before turning to King.

“It’s really true?” he asks. “You will never forget his face?”

“Never. Or how yours looked when you told me his name.”

Khun Sumali holds his gaze for a solemn moment—and then with the air of a monk conveying a blessing, he leans forward to press a kiss to King’s forehead, between his eyes. 

“Then may your lifespan be long, and your love increase,” he says. “Sawatdee, Nongs.”

“Sawatdee, khrab,” both young men echo.

The old man stands there watching till the limousine rounds a curve and he is lost to their view.

~

Ram had planned to take King out for a birthday dinner too, but by mutual agreement they opt for a shower and takeout instead. King’s energy level rebounds as they eat, which bodes well for the night ahead.

“I’m glad we’re moving in together,” Ram says when they’re clearing the dishes from their meal. 

King gives him a questioning look. “Me too, but what made you think of it right now?”

“Just something Khun Sumali said. About never knowing how much time we have.” Ram wrests the dish towel from King’s hands and tosses it onto its hook. “Let’s narrow down those listings and go see our favorites next weekend.”

“Mm.” King tips up his chin to invite a kiss, which Ram promptly delivers. “Yes, please.”

“But for tonight…” Ram leans in to capture his lips again. “I have one more birthday present for you.”

“Let me guess.” King melts against him with a teasing smile. “Is it the kind I can unwrap in the bedroom?”

Ram has to suppress a smirk. “No.”

“ _No?_ ” King echoes with surprise. “Where, then?”

“Bathroom.” Grabbing his wrist, Ram tugs him in that direction and soon has a puzzled King seated on the closed lid of the toilet. “Close your eyes.”

“What are we doing, Cool Boy?”

“Just close them.” Ram makes a satisfied sound as King complies, then takes hold of the collar of his boyfriend’s shirt. “Now let’s get this off you.” 

Obligingly King raises his arms. “I still think the bedroom would be better.”

“Shh. Hold still.” With a peek at King to be sure his boyfriend’s eyes are still closed, Ram first readies a wet washcloth and then retrieves the supplies he’d tucked away earlier in the bathroom cabinet. With deft fingers he peels the clear plastic covering off the temporary tattoo paper and presses it to the side of King’s neck, just below the ear.

“What the—” King starts to reach for it but Ram smacks his fingers. “What are you doing to me, Cool Boy?”

“You’ll see. Just hold still for another minute.” With his free hand Ram takes up the washcloth and uses it to thoroughly saturate the paper, then presses firmly. Mentally he counts off the seconds to himself, lifting off the cloth when he hits sixty. Then all that remains is to carefully peel the paper away from the skin. “OK, done. Look but don’t touch till it’s dry.”

Ram throws away the paper and wrings out the cloth, and when he straightens again King is standing in front of the mirror, his mouth open in an O of surprise and dawning delight. 

“Cool Boy! You tattooed me!” he crows, turning his head for a better look. “I’m cool now too!”

“You said you wanted one. It should last a week if you’re careful.” Ram steps up behind him for a back hug as they both study King’s new look in the mirror. “Do you like it?”

 _I want to have a tattoo of my name behind my ear,_ King had said on that bus ride months ago. _But I’m afraid of needles._ So Ram had brought the request to his own tattoo artist, asking for a design to include not only King’s name but the plants he loves so much. In the finished line-art illustration, a delicate flowering vine winds gracefully around the letters K-I-N-G, finishing with a larger trumpet flower at the end like a floral exclamation mark. 

“I love it.” King is smiling as their eyes meet in the mirror. “And I love you.”

“I love you too.” Ram drops a kiss on his nape. “Happy birthday, my baby.”

“I think it’s dry now,” King observes. He presses back more firmly against Ram with a suggestive little rotation of his hips. “Take me to bed, Cool Boy?”

“Yes, Temporarily Cool Birthday Boy.”

~

A few weeks later, as they’re packing up the condo for their move, King comes into the living room where Ram is wrestling a sealed carton atop a stack of others. He’s holding an expensive-looking envelope in his one hand and a matching card in the other, his face puzzled.

“It’s from Khun Sumali,” he says. “Just delivered by courier. But I don’t understand it.”

The carton in its proper place, Ram wipes his sweaty hands on his jeans-clad thighs and comes to examine the card. 

In the shaky script of an old man, the message says:  
  


_The Udumbara is probably just a legend._  
_Probably.  
_ _  
-Sumali Sae Li_  
  


On a hunch, Ram takes the envelope from King’s other hand and peers inside. Yes. There it is. He shakes it out onto King’s palm, just a small thing, teardrop-shaped and faintly pearlescent.

A single seed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Udumbara is a flower in Buddhist legends that blooms only once every 3000 years. Probably it doesn’t exist. Probably King does not actually now possess the only known seed. Probably.
> 
> A note on names:
> 
>   * “Chati” means Life.
>   * “Sumali” means Flower.
>   * The old man’s surname, “Sae Li,” reflects his family’s original Chinese name Li, which means Plum Tree.
> 



	8. Homeward Bound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You don’t have to do this if you’re not ready,” King says. “I don’t care if they think we’re just roommates for now.”
> 
> “But I do,” Ram says, his mouth set in a determined line. “I’m not my father. I’m not going to live a lie.”

“Who’s my sweetheart?” King croons. “Who’s my pretty? Yes, it’s you! Yes! Yes, it is!”

Watching from Apple’s front steps, Ram can’t suppress a fond smile. “I feel like I should be jealous,” he says.

The foster caregiver smiles too as King rolls onto his back in the grass, waving his arms and legs in the air in mimicry of Tuffy, who’s doing the same beside him with all four paws. “It’s hard to believe that’s the boy with the dog phobia,” she says. “Or the pitiful terrified dog hiding under the bushes a month ago.”

“God I love him,” Ram blurts out, then clamps his lips shut, abashed. He can feel the blush heating his cheeks and he has to avoid Apple’s eyes as she laughs and pats his shoulder.

“It’s not like I hadn’t noticed,” she teases. “I’m happy for you, Ram. This weekend is the big move, right?”

Ram nods. “We get the keys to the new place Friday afternoon.”

“How exciting for you! It’s a big milestone, moving in with someone, but I have a feeling you two will handle it beautifully.”

“I hope so.” He smiles again as they watch King putting Tuffy through her paces, starting with Sit and progressing to Down and Stay, with a treat for each success. Still without looking at Apple, he dares to ask, “Did you ever?”

“Live with someone? Oh, yes. Several times. Roommates, romantic partners. I was even married once. I’m not really suited to it, though—I prefer the company of animals and I’m not very good at hiding it.” She gives him a curious sidelong look. “You’re not worried, are you?”

“He’s so sunny,” Ram says softly.

“And you’re not? Oh, Ram.” She squeezes his shoulder again. “I’m clearly not an expert on love, Nong, but I know it when I see it, whether it’s between King and Tuffy or King and you. That boy adores you.”

 _I know,_ Ram thinks. _But my father adored my mother too._

Before he can reply—and what could he say, really, that Apple could answer?—a tennis ball rolls toward them and Tuffy comes bounding across the yard in pursuit, closely followed by King, who catches hold of her collar before she can barrel into their legs. Still every inch a mongrel with her mismatched eyes, cocked ears, and unruly brown coat, Tuffy has thrived under Apple’s loving care and King’s frequent visits into a lively, playful dog brimming with health and energy. She still exhibits fear of other dogs, especially those larger than herself, but Apple and the rescue’s dog trainer have recommended a gradual plan for introducing Tuffy to Ram’s malamutes as part of her socialization.

“Tuffy, sit!” King commands, and the dog obediently drops to her haunches. King beams with pride. “Isn’t she the smartest girl?” he marvels. “P’Apple, have you gotten any word on our adoption application? I emailed the adoption coordinator last week but I haven’t heard back.”

“As a matter of fact, I have.” Apple smiles reassuringly as both young men come to attention at her words. “Subject to you finishing the obedience training with Tuffy—which clearly isn’t going to be a problem—I’m cleared to sign off on the adoption as soon as you’re settled in your new condo.”

“Yes!” shouts King, kneeling down to ruffle Tuffy’s fur and plant a kiss on her snout. “Hear that, girl? You’re going to be ours for real.” 

He looks up at Ram then, rumpled and grass-stained and so aglow with happiness that it almost hurts to look at him, and Ram loses his heart to him all over again. That’s nothing new, though. It happens eight or ten times a day, for reasons as simple as a turn of his head or a look in his eyes, or as primal as the heat of King’s body under his. To be with King, Ram has discovered, is to fall and fall and fall again.

Giving in to the inevitable, Ram kneels beside him and gathers up both King and the dog in his arms, kissing one and suffering the licks of the other, and resists not at all as the two of them promptly topple him onto the grass in a heap of love and laughter.

 _It’s all going to be fine,_ he tells himself fiercely. _It is. It is. It is._

~

“You don’t have to do this if you’re not ready,” King says. “I don’t care if they think we’re just roommates for now.”

“But I do,” Ram says, his mouth set in a determined line. “I’m not my father. I’m not going to live a lie.”

They’re outside Ram’s family home in Bohn’s car, which King had borrowed with a murmured explanation delivered well out of Ram’s earshot. “I have a feeling this conversation with his parents could go badly,” he’d told Bohn, “and I want to be able to get him out of there fast if it’s a shitshow.” 

Bohn, with the memory all too fresh of his own disastrous confrontation with Duen’s father—who’d decked him with a one-two punch from his meaty fists—had handed over the keys at once. He’d even volunteered to be their getaway driver, an offer King had appreciated but declined, knowing Ram would hate for Bohn to see him vulnerable. He hadn’t let Bohn escape unhugged, though.

“Thank you,” he’d whispered fiercely in Bohn’s ear. “It means a lot.”

Bohn had hugged him back hard enough to make his ribs creak. “We’re your family too,” he said. “Duen and me. Remember that, whatever happens.” 

_At least I won’t get punched,_ King thinks now. He knows Ram would put his own body between him and any physical harm without hesitation. He only wishes he could stand between Ram and emotional harm in the same way. 

“All right then,” he says with more courage than he feels. “We got this.” He’s halted, though, by Ram’s hand on his arm after he unlocks the car doors. “Cool Boy, what—” he begins, only to be silenced by a warm mouth on his, fast and urgent.

“I love you,” Ram says when he releases him. His face is taut with emotion and King is seized by the desire to smooth out the worry lines between his eyes. “However this goes, I love you and I want to be with you.”

King raises a hand to his cheek. “Right back at you, with interest.” He forces a smile although he suspects it’s an unsteady one. “We got this, right? Come on. Let’s get it over with.” 

In retrospect he’s glad they had that small moment, because once they’re inside it takes all of twelve and a half seconds before everything goes to hell.

That’s how long it takes to get in the front door, kick off their shoes, hear Ram’s mother call a cheerful greeting from the kitchen, and walk down the hall to join her.

That’s how long it takes to discover Pin is in the house.

Ram realizes it first; King is distracted by Ram’s mother, who immediately steps forward to greet her son and his guest. King is still in mid-wai and “Sawat—” when it registers that his boyfriend has gone rigid beside him, staring past his mother to the kitchen table where a lovely young woman is poring over a textbook with Ruj.

“—dee, Khun Mae,” King trails off just as Ram sways on his feet and his face goes the color of milk. “Ram?” Alarmed, King nudges himself under Ram’s arm and gets his own arm around Ram’s waist to steady him. “ _Ram._ Cool Boy, come here, sit down—you look like you’re going to fall over.”

 _Fix this,_ he orders his genius brain as he guides Ram to a chair, and by the time Ram’s ass hits the seat his damage-control subroutine has already served up a plan. 

“I _told_ you to eat breakfast,” King loudly chides his boyfriend, who had in fact downed a hearty one cooked by King himself. “I”m sorry, Khun Mae,” he adds with a guileless smile for Ram’s mother. “I’m afraid we celebrated the end of the semester a little too hard last night. Engineering students get carried away sometimes.” He shifts his gaze to Ruj while studiously ignoring the girl seated beside him. “Could I trouble you for a glass of water for your brother, Nong?” 

“Of course, P’King!” Ruj scrambles to his feet to obey, disarranging his textbook and papers in the process. 

Ram’s mother doesn’t seem to suspect anything is amiss; she falls in line with King’s scenario without question. “Ram, you should know better,” she scolds in her heavily accented Thai as she lays a kindly hand on her son’s brow. “Foolish boy! Just relax now until your father gets here and then we’ll have a nice lunch together. N’King, I don’t think you’ve met Ram’s friend, our neighbor Pin? She’s tutoring Ruj now that Ram is here less often. Pin, dear, this is Ram’s senior King from the university.”

“Sawatdee, N’Pin.” King tries to greet Pin as neutrally as possible but it isn’t easy. How can she sit here smiling at the people whose family she’s betrayed? At the woman whose husband she’s bedding? At _Ram?_

Intellectually, King holds Ram’s father responsible for the affair. He’s a middle-aged man with a family, he’s the one who made and broke _vows_ , while Pin isn’t much more than a kid, probably easy prey for a manipulative older man. But the heart has its own logic and King’s heart belongs to Ram, who lost his respect for his father, his sense of security in his family, and his best friend all in one fell swoop—a triple blow that still has him reeling in ways only King ever sees. So King’s empathy for Pin stops where his protectiveness for Ram begins. Right now he’d shove her bodily out the kitchen window if he could. 

They’re on the first floor, after all. She probably wouldn’t suffer more than a bruise on her shapely ass.

 _Focus,_ King reminds himself. _You won’t defuse the situation by bitchslapping Pin._ Casting about for a more effective diversion, his attention turns to the homework spread across the table. 

“Advanced algebra,” he observes, reading the open textbook and worksheets upside down with a single glance. “I’ll be happy to take over here if you like, N’Pin. Mathematics is one of my best subjects.”

Head still in his hands, Ram nonetheless manages a faint snort. “Every subject is your best subject.” He raises his head and smiles wanly at his boyfriend before turning to his mother. “P’King has the highest score in every class,” he tells her. “They call him the God King. He’s the reason my grades have improved so much.”

“Oh, are you Ram’s peer mentor, P’King?” Pin asks. 

“No, I just enjoy helping my juniors—especially my new roommate. What do you say, N’Ruj?” he asks as the younger boy returns with a brimming glass of ice water, which King carefully hands off to Ram. “Shall I tutor you after lunch?”

Ruj’s pleased grin is accompanied by a far too knowing look as his eyes dart from King to Ram and back again. “Sure!” he agrees cheerfully. “P’Pin is probably tired of explaining everything three times to get it through my thick head. And I know how much my brother has learned from you, P’King.”

 _I’ll bet you do,_ King thinks, squelching the desire to smack the boy on the head. Ruj is far too savvy for his own good. He’d deduced King’s interest in Ram and vice versa before they’d even acknowledged it themselves, the nosy little shit. He’s a good kid, though, and a good brother.

Ram has managed to drain the water glass while the others were speaking, and King is relieved to see that his color has improved. He gives Ram’s shoulder a quick squeeze. “Better?” he asks.

“Better,” his boyfriend agrees, but the way he looks around at everyone and everything except Pin makes King’s heart ache. Ram gets to his feet, moving slowly as though in physical pain. “Mae, I’ll take P’King to my room now. Let me know when Dad gets home.”

“Of course,” his mother says. “But don’t you want to—”

“We need to pack more of Ram’s things for our new place,” King interrupts smoothly. He grabs Ram’s elbow to keep him in motion, trying to communicate love and reassurance through the grip of his fingers alone.

The door of Ram’s room has barely closed behind them before he’s in King’s arms, shaking, his face pressed so tightly into King’s shoulder that his boyfriend can’t tell whether the tremors are from tears or rage or both.

“Cool Boy,” he soothes, gently rubbing his back with both palms. “It’s all right now. It’s going to be OK.”

Ram’s only answer is a headshake. King doesn’t try to make him talk, just continues to stroke and pat and make nonsensical calming sounds while Ram breathes in shallow, angry huffs. 

“That’s my sweetheart,” he says softly. “That’s my love. I’ve got you. I’m here.”

When he guides Ram toward the bed he only means to sit him down, get him off his feet, maybe loosen his collar. Instead he finds himself unceremoniously shoved onto the mattress with an overwrought boyfriend on top of him, mouth at his throat and hands grabbing at his shirt, and even for King’s quicksilver mind that’s a change of mood too abrupt to follow.

“ _Ram,_ ” he hisses, pushing ineffectually at the hard body pinning him. “Ram, not here—we can’t—” 

“Help me,” Ram gasps against his skin. “Baby, _help me._ ”

“I’m trying, Cool Boy.” King captures his straying hands, holds them tight between their two chests. “Be still now, OK? I’m here. Just hold me and breathe.”

But Ram continues to struggle, bearing down hard on King as though trying to take refuge in his boyfriend’s body. “She was my _best friend,_ ” he whispers brokenly. “She was my—she—” He sucks in a great shuddering breath and lets it out in a ragged sob. “My first crush. My first kiss. And he knew. King, _he knew._ ”

 _Oh fucking hell,_ King thinks with horror and revulsion. _Oh god, that’s so fucked up it’s almost Oedipal._ Shit, no wonder Ram was crying now, had cried that night in King’s condo. The magnitude of his father’s betrayal of both his mother and Ram himself is so staggering that no words King can summon could possibly diminish it. So he falls back to the only words that matter.

“I’m here, love,” he whispers over and over, petting Ram’s hair as though soothing a wounded animal. “I”m here. I love you. I’m here.”

When he plays over the scene later with his perfect recall, King understands how deliberately and recklessly they courted disaster and how absurd it was to be shocked that disaster came when called. In the moment, though, there is only Ram’s distress and his own desperate concern—and his anger, too, for anyone who dares hurt this fiercely loyal boy who wants only to defend the ones he loves. But for all his strength, not even Ram can defend them from each other.

 _No wonder he’s melting down,_ King thinks as he eases Ram onto his back and burrows into his arms to comfort his boyfriend as he continues to weep. Every direction Ram turns, no matter what choice he makes, someone precious to him will be unforgivably deceived or terribly hurt. King’s got no magic balm for that. Only his presence and his love.

And so what if comfort becomes kissing? Kisses _are_ comfort. As Ram’s tears gradually taper off and his breathing steadies, King continues to feather soft kisses across his cheeks, his forehead, his closed eyelids and finally, when Ram at last relaxes into his touch with a weary sigh, his lips. He tastes of salt. 

Which of course is when Ram’s father decides to throw open the bedroom door.

“Ram, your mother says—” is all he gets out before they all freeze, Ram’s father framed in the doorway, Ram sprawled on the bed with King half on top of him. 

For an instant King can only imagine how they must look to him in their frozen tableau, Ram with his tear-streaked face, King with his bed-tousled hair and rucked-up shirt, intimately entangled with their hands clasped and their lips still touching. There’s no innocent interpretation for their pose. They cannot be mistaken for anything but lovers, and King sees that reality register on the older man’s face as shock and dawning disgust.

He sees the man’s lips shape an ugly epithet, and never in his life has King wanted so badly to hit someone. _How dare he?_ How dare this cheating son of a bitch curl his lip in revulsion at the two of them, simply holding one another in love and comfort, after what _he’s_ done? King wants to slap that expression and that filthy half-uttered word off his face.

But he also wants to protect Ram, and getting into a physical altercation with his father—which would inevitably involve Ram coming to King’s rescue, because god knows he’s no fighter—isn’t going to help his boyfriend. No matter how satisfying it would feel in the moment.

Summoning all his self-control, King forces himself to sit up. He manages it with surprising grace under the circumstances. _Buy time,_ he thinks. _Let Ram pull himself together._ So with exaggerated calm he gets to his feet, deliberately placing himself between Ram and his father’s line of sight.

“Did Khun Mae want you to tell us that lunch is ready?” he asks in conversational tones.

Ram’s father manages to nod without meeting his eyes.

“Then we’ll wash our hands and join you in a few minutes, Khun,” King says with his sweetest smile and a perfectly respectful wai.

And then he takes a giant step forward and kicks the door shut in the man’s face.

~

Pin has gone home, King is relieved to see when he and Ram join the family at the lunch table, although Ram’s mother had clearly expected the girl to stay—she’s removing an extra place setting as they enter, a perplexed expression on her face that eases and brightens at the sight of them.

“There you are! Did you boys finish your packing? Pin had to leave, Ram, but she said she’d text you later.”

“We’re not done,” King replies on Ram’s behalf, “but there’s nothing we need to take with us today. Khun Mae, this looks delicious,” he adds, gesturing to the array of tempting dishes.

“Mae always cooks too much when we have company,” pipes up Ruj, whose gaze is darting between his brother’s tense face and his father’s studiously blank one. King gives him what he hopes is a reassuring nod.

“Psshh,” his mother protests, “it’s so Ram and King can bring leftovers home. They won’t want to be cooking in the middle of their move. Sit, sit, everything is ready now.”

The parents take opposite ends of the table, Ram and King between them on one side with Ruj opposite. Ram’s mother chatters on as dishes are passed, either unaware of the tension around the table or making tremendous effort to appear so. Her husband has yet to utter a word, although there seems to be some kind of silent communication occurring between him and Ram through a combination of fierce expressions and unblinking stares. 

“King, I have some cuttings for you of that lemon thyme you were admiring in my kitchen garden last time you were here,” Khun Mae continues. “And Ram, I just laundered your extra bed linens in case you need them.”

Ram clears his throat. “Thank you, Mae, but they won’t be the right size now,” he says. “We…P’King and I...” He pauses, his face pale but determined, and places a hand on King’s shoulder. “We picked out new bedroom furniture at IKEA yesterday.” 

Khun Mae goes still except for her eyes, which widen as his meaning sinks in. “Together,” she says after a moment, softly, a question but no judgment in her voice.

“Yes,” says Ram. “We are. Together.”

“Ha!” Ruj crows jubilantly. “I knew it! Ram’s never made puppy eyes at anyone who wasn’t a dog before.”

“Shut your mouth, Ruj,” his father snaps. “This isn’t a time for jokes. Unless this is a joke?” he asks Ram belligerently, gesturing at the two of them.

Ram doesn’t respond in kind, only raises his chin a notch higher and tightens his grip on King. “No joke,” he says with quiet dignity. “I love P’King.” 

“And I love Ram.” King covers his boyfriend’s hand with his own, feeling its minute trembling. _I’m so proud of you, Cool Boy,_ he thinks fiercely, hoping his love and support comes through in his touch. _So proud._

“Love,” scoffs Ram’s father, disgust all too evident in his voice. “And what do _you_ know about love?”

“As much as you.” Ram’s voice is still calm but his gaze on his father contains a challenge and a threat. “Maybe more.”

 _Oh shit, here we go,_ King thinks as Ram’s father shoves back his chair and starts to rise, fury and revulsion warring for control of his face. But to his surprise Khun Mae immediately puts a restraining hand on her husband’s arm.

“Sit _down_ ,” she orders in English. “There will be no fighting at my table. Boys…” Her gaze on them is still wondering, King sees, but also compassionate and kind. “You are sure? Even today, this is not an easy path in our society.”

“Very sure,” says King. Ram gives a decisive nod.

“Well, then…” She smiles at them tremulously, her hand still gently but firmly restraining her hostile husband. “Then I wish you much happiness together. Much love. And—and if you can’t use the bed linens then I will send more towels with you instead. Towels are one size fits all, na?”

Beside her, Ram’s father makes a disgruntled sound low in his throat but subsides when his wife rounds on him with an eloquent look. Something in her manner makes King wonder for the first time whether she knows more about her husband’s secrets than Ram supposes. She’s small and seemingly vulnerable but there’s a determination in her eyes that he’s glimpsed before in the face of her stalwart son.

“We’d love more towels,” Ram says. “King keeps ruining his mopping up after he waters plants.”

“Towels it is, then.” With another quelling look at the man beside her, she raises her glass high and declares brightly, “Congratulations on your new home.”

Ram, King, and Ruj all clink their glasses together with hers, and by some unspoken agreement they all pretend not to notice that Ram’s father doesn’t join in.

 _It’s just as well,_ King thinks as he nudges his leg snugly up against Ram’s under the table. _Who wants the blessing of a liar and a cheat anyhow?_ But he can’t help but notice the bleak, desolate look in his boyfriend’s eyes as he gazes down the table at his father. 

The liar’s son, that’s who.

~

By the time the uncomfortable family visit ends, it’s time to collect the keys of their new place. They make the trip mostly in silence but Ram keeps a warm hand on King’s thigh, and at red lights King pats it reassuringly with his own.

“I guess it could’ve gone worse,” King says finally.

“Mm. I still wanted to hit him, though.”

“I wanted to pitch Pin out the window,” King counters, “and see if she bounced.”

Their laughter is forced and louder than the joke warrants, but it’s a relief to vent some of the accumulated tension. By the time they park in front of the rental office, Ram’s smile looks genuine again and King is singing along with sappy pop songs in a terrible but enthusiastic falsetto.

He doesn’t care. Any song that gives him an excuse to sing “I love you” to Ram is a good song. 

The real move will commence tomorrow with a rental van and all the friends they could bribe or coerce, but once they’ve acquired two sets of keys and the building access code from the office it’s impossible to resist a quick walkthrough. Laden with the generous supply of leftovers from Ram’s mother and a laundry hamper of towels, they unlock the door to their new home and step inside to the smell of fresh paint and household cleaning products. 

“It looks so big now that it’s empty,” King marvels, turning in smiling circles in the middle of the living room, bright with sunlight from the condo unit’s south- and east-facing windows. “The last tenants had so much furniture and knicknacks crammed in here when we toured it.”

“But not ninety-five plants,” Ram teases over his shoulder as he stows the leftovers in their new refrigerator. 

“Watch it, those are my beloved children you’re talking about.” King comes up behind him and captures Ram in a back hug. “We really did it, Cool Boy. This our place.”

Ram nudges the refrigerator shut and turns in King’s arms to claim his mouth, walking him backward as they kiss until his backside is up against the kitchen island. Without pause, Ram effortlessly hoists him up and wraps his boyfriend’s legs around his waist, triggering a needy little shiver that ripples pleasurably through King. God, it makes him crazy when Ram uses his strength. Ram possesses the kind of compact, wiry muscularity that’s easy to underestimate—but King has watched him in the boxing ring and at the gym, and seeing all that quiet, coiled energy unleashed does dark and hungry things to his libido every time.

“Yes,” he pants between increasingly heated kisses. “Take me right here, Cool Boy. Fuck me.”

Ram buries his face in King’s neck and groans in frustration. “Baby, I can’t. We don’t have anything. I’ll just—” 

“Yes, we do,” King interrupts, loosening the grip of his arms and legs to free Ram. “In my bag—dropped it by the door. Bring a towel too.” When Ram doesn’t move he nudges his chest. “What’s the matter?”

“My _mother_ gave us those towels.”

King laughs at the outrage in his voice and turns the nudge into a shove. “Cool Boy, we just told her we’re a couple and we bought a bed together. I’m pretty sure she knows we fuck.” 

“Don’t make me think about that,” Ram protests, but he’s already complying and his backward glance at King is heated. King just grins and strips off his shirt, tossing it right in Ram’s face when he returns with the requested items.

He knows from experience that Cool Boy has trouble keeping that cool once the clothes come off, and this time is no exception. Ram flings the discarded shirt aside, slaps the lube sachet and condom down on the countertop and _yanks_ King back into his arms, his kiss demanding and his hands possessive. King makes a pleased hum low in his throat and tips his head back invitingly, going boneless and pliant as Ram begins to nip at his neck and shoulder. 

“We’re going to christen every room this week,” he murmurs as Ram makes short work of discarding his own shirt and every remaining stitch of King’s clothing.

“Mm,” Ram agrees, finding the spot behind King’s ear that makes his breath hitch.

“Some of them twice.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“I’ve got special plans for the new bed.”

Ram raises his head and gives King a stare that’s equal parts white-hot desire and aggravation. “Less talking. More unzipping.”

Their coupling, when it happens, is fast and fierce and not entirely satisfying for King. He doesn’t really mind. He knows Ram will more than make up for it in bed later, remorseful at his own selfishness. But right now this is what his Cool Boy needs after their emotionally fraught afternoon: raw release. King is just along for the ride, clinging to Ram’s shoulders and urging him on as his boyfriend drives into him relentlessly.

“That’s it,” he groans when he feels Ram’s body begin to tremble from the effort of holding back. “Don’t stop, Cool Boy, just– _ah!–yes!_ Just do it. Come for me.”

Stubbornly Ram shakes his head. “You...first.”

Relationships require give and take; King has always understood that. But Ram gives so much that sometimes he needs encouragement to let himself take, and this is one of those times. So King doesn’t hesitate to play dirty, using his mind’s now-extensive catalog of the exact words, tones, gestures and actions proven to drive his boyfriend out of his fucking mind.

He lets his head fall forward just enough to shake his bangs into his face, then gives a soft helpless moan and looks up at Ram with his eyes begging and his lower lip caught between his teeth. He follows it up with a little gasp and a turn of his head to the precise angle that draws Ram’s attention to the graceful line of his neck. Swallows hard. Moans again, louder this time.

“So big in me,” he breathes. 

Ram’s arms instantly tighten on him and his answering surge forward is involuntary and violent enough to shake King’s bones. His moan is completely genuine as Ram’s teeth sink into his shoulder nearly hard enough to draw blood. _Almost there,_ King thinks with deep primal satisfaction. _Almost..there..._

“Make me feel it,” he croons into Ram’s ear as his boyfriend is kissing an apology onto his abused neck. “Show me you want me.”

“Always...want you.”

King arches up against him, splaying both hands across Ram’s ass to savor the clench and release of those powerful muscles. “ _Show me,_ ” he repeats, his voice low and ragged but commanding. “Show me _hard._ ”

With a desperate groan Ram goes up on his toes, closes his hands painfully hard on King’s hips to force him even tighter against his toiling body, and _slams_ into him once, twice, three times—

“ _Baby,_ ” is all he manages to gasp before his whole body shudders with the force of his release into King. 

Unexpectedly, the forcefulness of his climax pushes King over the edge too and he cries out his own pleasure in muffled moans against Ram’s shoulder. They rock against one another in gradually smaller and gentler motions, winding down together as the blinding heat of orgasm gives way to the gentler heat of afterglow. They finish up in a sweet if sticky embrace, King’s arms looped around Ram’s neck and Ram’s hands rubbing the places where King’s hips will undoubtedly bear his fingermark bruises tomorrow. 

“You weren’t too rough,” King says softly, heading off Ram’s remorse at the pass. 

“I was.”

“We both needed it.” Drawing back a little to peer into his lover’s anxious eyes, King presses a soft kiss to his lips. “Sometimes it’s all right to let yourself go, Cool Boy. I’ll tell you if it’s not, OK? I promise. Trust me.”

Ram’s answering smile is fleeting but sweet. “I do trust you,” he says, both hands coming up to cradle King’s face. “Always.”

“Mm. I’m glad, because...um…” King casts a rueful glance downward. “I think the condom broke. Good thing you grabbed one of those towels your m—”

Ram claps a hand over his mouth with a narrow-eyed glare. “If you mention my mother again while we’re naked,” he hisses, “I swear I’m breaking up with you.”

“Sorry,” King says, the word muffled against a large sweaty palm. Deliberately he widens his eyes and puts a beseeching furrow in his brow.

“Also, you’re a terrible actor,” Ram mutters, removing his hand. “Don’t think I didn’t notice what you were doing before.”

“But you love it.”

With a beleaguered sigh his boyfriend shoves the towel in his face. “No,” he replies. “I just love you.”

King just smirks. “One room down,” he says, “Four more to go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's face it, King knows he's cute. Don't try to tell me he doesn't take advantage of it sometimes.
> 
> The confrontation between Duen's father and Bohn is my shared headcanon with Kari_Kurofai, who wrote about it in their fic Last Dance here:  
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/24482257


	9. Good Morning, Sunshine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The thing about moving in together, Ram discovers, is that you learn things you never suspected about your partner from casual weekend sleepovers together. 
> 
> King is a _morning person._ Can this relationship be saved?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which our newly cohabiting boys are settling in—learning more about adulting, their families, and each other.

The thing about moving in together, Ram discovers, is that you learn things you never suspected about your partner from casual weekend sleepovers together. 

Such as the fact that meticulous, detail-oriented King _who literally cannot forget_ still leaves damp towels on the floor. 

Such as the fact that King refuses to recognize the inherent superiority of leading-edge-over versus leading-edge-under placement of the toilet paper roll. 

Such as the fact that King likes to empty packages of rice, pasta, and dried legumes into cute matching canisters and then throw away the original packaging with its nutrition information and cooking instructions. King remembers all of it, of course, but Ram is a mere mortal with an ordinary memory.

But most heinous of all? The betrayal that seriously calls into question their long-term compatibility?

_King is a morning person._

Looking back, he realizes the signs were there. The scant few times he’d ever awakened with King in his arms, either King was hungover (like the first night they shared a bed) or he’d returned to bed to snuggle after his morning tea and plant-care routine. More often lately Ram finds King making breakfast or sketching container-garden ideas for their patio—or, this morning, obsessively rearranging the furniture and toys in what he’s dubbed the Dog Den and Ram jokingly calls the Doggie Dream Bedroom. 

Extra large mug of morning coffee in hand, Ram leans against the doorway to watch groggily as King moves the dog food bin from its current spot in the corner to a new place under the window. Then he frowns and shifts it back again before crossing the room to dump out the contents of a toy basket and begin rapidly sorting them according to no criteria that Ram can deduce.

He knows what King’s agitation is about, though: the upcoming site visit by the rescue organization, the final hurdle before Tuffy can truly be theirs. Even though Apple assures them it’s just a formality at this point, King has still been fretting. It didn’t help that Apple recommended waiting till after their housewarming party this Saturday, which has pushed Tuffy’s homecoming out an extra week.

“It’s going to be fine,” Ram says softly. 

King looks up from the piles of toys, startled, and with a pang Ram sees the anxiety in his face before it’s eclipsed by King’s sweet smile. Sometimes his genius boyfriend’s ability to overthink everything at lightning speed and breathtaking magnitude is a curse, not a gift.

“Cool Boy, you’re awake!” he exclaims, bouncing to his feet to greet Ram with the first kiss of the morning. Alarmed, Ram manages to hold his too-full coffee mug clear of the King-shaped dynamo with one hand while utilizing the other to steady him at the waist. He reluctantly draws back, though, when King tries to deepen the kiss.

“Haven’t brushed yet,” he mutters apologetically. “Sorry. Just got up.”

King wrinkles his nose, which is frankly adorable. “You always miss the best part of the morning.”

“Best part is sleeping in.” Ram manages to swig a largish mouthful of coffee before King’s very distracting hands slip inside his robe. “P’King, careful! It’s hot.”

“Yes, you certainly are,” King agrees with a familiar gleam in his eye. “Shower with me? I’ll wash your back. And your front.”

“Coffee first?” Ram pleads, although he can already feel himself responding to King’s touch. Before King, he’d often take an hour or more to work his way to true wakefulness in the morning, only gradually inching his way up the evolutionary ladder to human with each sip of life-giving caffeine. But King is a bundle of energy from the instant his eyes open, ready to immediately catapult himself into the day’s activities—or onto Ram. 

King not only loves mornings, he loves morning _sex._ Not that they don’t do it other times of day too; they’re young, healthy, horny and in love, not to mention still in the honeymoon phase of their relationship. But in King’s opinion, every morning wood is a morning _should_. He’d happily start every single day with sex, if only Ram weren’t so often mumbling incoherently and trying to pull the covers back over his head.

Therein lies the problem. Ram loves King. Ram loves sex with King. It kills him to refuse his baby anything, ever. But does it have to happen so goddamn _early?_

The primal lizard part of his brain is one hundred percent on board, though, triggering an achingly hard erection in response to King’s warmly intrusive hands stealing into his pajama pants even as Ram is fighting back a yawn and struggling to keep from spilling hot coffee on his beloved. With a sleepy sigh he surrenders and lets King pull him along to the bathroom, giving his steaming mug a last wistful look before abandoning it on the counter.

A few minutes later he has to admit to himself that caffeine or no caffeine, nothing starts a day quite like shoving a well-lathered King up against the shower tiles. Cranky morning Ram, while still not _rough_ with King, is too sleep-addled to worry about niceties like foreplay. No, as far as his lizard brain is concerned, “slick him up and dick him down” is a perfectly fine early-morning plan, and frankly what a certain someone deserves for being _perky_ before 8 a.m.

King gives no sign of minding, although his vocabulary is drastically reduced to just a few words, mostly _yes_ and _please_ and _ohgod_ and of course _Ram._ And then no words at all, just gasps and mewls.

Before they exit the shower the water has run cold and Ram’s coffee is cold too. 

~

“Mae, you’re early!” Ram exclaims as he opens the door to his mother and Ruj. “I’m not even dressed yet,” he adds, gesturing at the baggy gym clothes he’d thrown on this morning when he and King started deep-cleaning the condo for company.

After much discussion—well, much thinking out loud by King with nods, head shakes, skeptical eyebrow raises, and thoughtful hums from Ram—they’d planned a two-part housewarming event for their new home. At noon they’re hosting a brunch for their families, tomorrow night a pizza-and-beer party for their friends. But it’s now only 11:10 a.m. and here’s his mother on their doorstep wearing a pink sundress and a beaming smile.

Mae ignores his dismay and steps over the threshold to kiss his cheek. “I came to help cook for your brunch,” she says. “Did you think I wouldn’t? Have you met me, foolish boy?”

Behind her, Ruj grins and holds aloft the large cooler he’s carrying.

“Just show her to the kitchen, bro,” he advises Ram. “You won’t regret it.”

As Ram is about to usher her in that direction, though, King suddenly dashes out of the bedroom. “Hey, Cool Boy, have you seen my—oh!” He skids to a stop in front of Ram’s mother, his startled expression turning to one of cartoonish horror as he realizes they’re not alone. 

King is shirtless.

Rumple-haired.

Wearing only a towel.

Sporting a highly incriminating love bite just above his left nipple.

Without a word, Ram takes his mother by the shoulders and pushes her bodily toward the kitchen. “ _Cook,_ ” he says urgently, “while I murder my boyfriend.”

He hears her giggle as he grabs King’s wrist to drag him back to the bedroom.

Once they’re behind a closed door, King collapses face-first onto the bed and groans. “Is there any chance,” he says, voice muffled by his pillow, “that Ruj won’t give me shit about this until my dying day?”

“None.” 

“I was afraid of that.”

“He snapped a picture too.”

“Do you think your mother saw—”

“Everything.” Seating himself on the edge of the bed, Ram gives King’s towel-clad backside a gentle pat. “It’s OK. She’s used to stupid boys.”

King raises his head long enough to give him a mortified stare. “Is she used to seeing them nearly naked with your toothmarks on their _tit?_ No? Then shut up.” He shoves his face back into the pillow. “I’ll just stay here until she’s forgotten about it.”

“Forever, then?” When King doesn’t answer, Ram pats his ass again. “Baby, come on. Get dressed.” 

“What part of ‘forever’ did you not understand?”

“Baby.” This time the pat is more of a spank, and King makes an... _interesting_ sound, one that Ram notes for future reference. “Get dressed and I’ll give you a present,” he cajoles.

King lifts his head again, blinking at him. With his bed-rumpled hair, he looks like an adorably bewildered hedgehog; Ram has to resist the urge to kiss his nose. 

“What kind of present?” he asks suspiciously.

Ram just points, first at him and then his own lips. _Kiss me and I”ll tell you._

In a flash—both figurative and literal, given how much his towel has slipped—King is sitting up and leaning in to oblige, his mouth warm and greedy on Ram’s. 

It takes every bit of Ram’s willpower not to let his hands stray over all that tempting golden skin on display, to limit himself to tangling both hands in the sleek strands of King’s hair while he kisses that delectable mouth. Even that much contact is enough to set his body thrumming with desire. Ram once thought that if he ever gave in to King, he’d go up in flames. He wasn’t wrong. All it ever takes is a touch and he burns for this boy, even with his mother and brother just down the hall. Even when he’d already made love to him two hours ago. 

Housewarming. Guests. Kitchen. _Mae._

With an effort, Ram pulls back and stands up. “Clothes.”

King stands up too, leaving the towel behind, and the two of them make short work of dressing in the casual but festive outfits they’d chosen earlier: khaki shorts and flowered shirts in the same pattern but two complementary colors. King’s is pink, Ram’s mint green.

Couple shirts. This is how far gone Ram is for King: he actually agreed to _couple shirts._

Ruj isn’t going to let him forget that either.

“So,” King says brightly as he fastens the final button on the pink shirt and nudges himself back into Ram’s arms. “What’s my present, Cool Boy?”

Ram takes a moment to straighten King’s collar, then bends down to murmur close to his ear. “Tomorrow morning,” he says, “I won’t complain if you wake me up early.”

King snorts. “You call that a present? I guess the honeymoon is really over.”

Ram palms the back of his neck and pulls him in tight, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. “I won’t complain if you wake me up early,” he repeats slowly and distinctly, “no matter _how_ you wake me.”

Suddenly King goes very still. Ram thinks he might even be holding his breath. “You mean…”

“Yes.”

“Say it,” King says hoarsely. “Cool Boy, I—you have to say it. I need the consent very clear here, all right? Spell it out for me.”

It takes Ram a moment to work out an utterly unambiguous answer that doesn’t involve an excruciating number of words, but after a moment he nods decisively and brings his lips to King’s ear again.

“Anything we’ve done awake is fair game,” he says, “no matter how deeply asleep I am. OK?” 

“Fuck.” King draws a ragged breath between clenched teeth. “Holy fucking hell, Cool Boy. You’re just going to say _that_ and expect me to walk out there to face your mother?”

The corners of Ram’s mouth twitch and he deliberately takes a half step back to gaze down King’s body, lingering on the front of his shorts. “Better wait a few minutes.”

“And put ice down my pants,” King mutters. His cheekbones are flushed, his eyes even brighter than usual as he waves an agitated hand at Ram. “Go. Distract your mother while I calm down.”

Ram does, but not before planting a soft kiss on one pink-tinged cheek. “Love you, my baby.”

“I love you too. Get out.”

Laughing, Ram obeys.

He finds his mother wearing King’s fern-patterned apron as she rapidly turns a mixing bowl of ingredients and a stack of eggroll wrappers into a tray of perfect spring rolls with her deft, expert hands. At the other end of the kitchen island, Ruj is dutifully skewering pieces of chicken on satay sticks, although he looks up long enough to give Ram an all-too-knowing grin.

“P’King is very cute,” he teases.

Ram considers the many kitchen implements he could throw before deciding with some regret to let his brother live another day. “Delete that photo,” he says curtly. “Mae, you didn’t have to do all this! You’re our guest.”

“It’s just appetizers,” his mother says with a dismissive shrug. “Haven’t I taught you it’s rude to come to a party empty-handed? How many guests are you expecting?”

“Is Dad coming?” Ram expects but is still pained by her quick headshake. _It’s for the best,_ he tells himself firmly. Better that his father be absent than toxically present, playing a hypocritical role with his wife and disapproving of Ram and King. “Ten, then. His parents, two sisters and their husbands, two nephews, you and Ruj.”

His mother wipes her hands on a towel and comes to him then, wrapping him tightly in her arms and drawing his head onto her shoulder as though he were a much younger child. Ram closes his eyes and breathes deeply, slowly, drawing in the familiar scent of her favorite perfume. 

“Sometimes people we love disappoint us,” she says softly, and Ram knows with sudden stark certainty that she isn’t speaking only of his father’s homophobia. “It’s sad, I know. But it is their failing, yes? Not our own. We cannot change them. We can only decide what is best for ourselves—whether that is with or without them.” 

Ram kisses her cheek. “I love you, Mae.”

“I love you too.” She gives him another squeeze before releasing him, her eyes shiny with unshed tears. “Now!” she says brightly. “Get your silly boyfriend out of hiding and show me the rest of your condo before the others arrive.”

The brunch, somewhat to introverted Ram’s surprise, is a great success. Ram’s mother and King’s parents hit it off at once, and Ruj cheerfully abandons his teenaged dignity to take King’s energetic nephews outside to play soccer. King’s sisters Kamfah and Kaning are as outgoing and bubbly as their brother—balancing out the quiet reserve of their husbands, who promptly claim a couple of patio chairs and take over minding the portable grill with the ease of long practice. Ram brings them cold beers and a bowl of spiced nuts, earning a grateful nod from Kaning’s husband and a broad grin from Kamfah’s.

“Thank Buddha for you, Nong Ram,” the latter declares, raising his beer in a toast. When Ram raises an inquiring eyebrow he adds, “Finally my wife has a gay couple in the family! Maybe now she’ll focus on you two and stop trying to encourage our prepubescent sons to find boyfriends.”

Ram makes what he hopes is a sympathetic face. Kamfah is...a lot. Lovely and intelligent but always a bit cringeworthy in her endless obsession with gay romance. He suspects King had a stern word with her about that before the housewarming, though, because other than the occasional happy squeal when Ram and King venture near one another, she’s been relatively normal around them today.

No one asks where Ram’s father is, for which he is profoundly grateful. But there’s a moment when Ram is quietly watching his mother chatting in the kitchen with King’s parents, her kind face animated and smiling—and it strikes him that maybe this is just how it’ll be from now on. His mother present, his father absent. Absent from Ram’s life, maybe absent from the family home too. Is it still the family home in anything but name?

_Yes, it is,_ he thinks fiercely. _Mae and Ruj and the dogs and me, we’re always going to be a family even if Dad’s not there. Even if he abandons us for Pin._

He feels a warm weight at his back as King’s arms slip around his waist from behind. “Doing OK, Cool Boy?” he murmurs for Ram’s ears only.

“Mostly.” He turns in King’s arms and hugs him close, briefly pressing their cheeks together. “Family, you know?” He leaves it at that, trusting King to connect the dots the way he always does with Ram’s silences. 

“Hey, break it up!” shouts Ruj from across the room. “Your guests are hungry and Kamfah’s little demons are stealing chicken skewers right off the grill! I’m going to join them if you don’t feed me soon.”

With a laugh, Ram separates himself from King and together they hasten to get the food transferred from oven, stovetop and refrigerator to the kitchen island, which they’ve set up as an impromptu buffet counter. They’re far from expert cooks, but after consultation with Duen they’d put together a respectable menu for a crowd: a baked dish of red curry with pork belly, sweet chili green beans, papaya salad, tom yum soup, and roti bread with cucumber relish. With his mother’s appetizers and a tray of desserts contributed by King’s sisters, it feels like a genuine feast after so many meals at the college cafeteria.

Truthfully, he’ll probably have a better time when it’s just the two of them, their friends, and a couple of delivery pizzas. But there’s no question he feels like a bona fide adult to be hosting their families like this. And judging by King’s proud smile, he feels the same.

“We did all right, Cool Boy,” King murmurs, sidling up to Ram to give him an affectionate shoulder bump as their families line up to fill their plates. “I’m sure my sisters thought we’d be feeding them instant ramen and bags of chips.”

“Kamfah wouldn’t care as long as she got to watch us feeding it to each other.”

“Don’t remind me. I had to lock our bedroom door to keep her from rifling your underwear drawer.” 

“Oh my god. Please tell me you're joking.”

"I wish I could." King pats his arm reassuringly. “I know she’s appalling, but she’ll calm down once she’s used to us being a couple, I promise.”

Ram is less confident about that but he lets it pass for now.

Their screened patio opens onto the condominium complex’s courtyard, so their party spills outdoors with their loaded plates of food. It’s a small but pleasing quadrangle with a few mango trees, planters of flowers (King knows all their names) and a scattering of umbrella tables. One side is open to the adjacent street, which will make dog walking convenient after they bring Tuffy home. With Tuffy and visits from Ram’s huskies in mind, they deliberately focused their condo search in neighborhoods surrounding the city’s few dog parks. It’s the best they can do until they’re older and established enough to buy a house with a yard.

Ram knows it’s far too early to think that way, that they’re too young and the relationship too new. The cautious, risk-averse part of him knows it—the part of him that’s bone-deep scared of failure and heartbreak. But when, like now, he looks at King and their eyes meet, and his baby’s face lights up with happiness and love…

He glimpses forever in those eyes. 

~

In bed that night, weary but pleased that their brunch was either “not a total nightmare” (according to Ram) or “a smashing success” (according to King), Ram is nearly drifting off when his boyfriend rolls over and nuzzles at his neck.

“Love you, Cool Boy.”

“Love you too,” Ram murmurs. “Too tired to do anything about it, though.”

“Mm. Me too. Thank you for today, though. I know my family is an exhausting collection of extroverts. You were very patient, even when my dad was interrogating you about your future plans.”

Ram groans, remembering that awkward exchange. “I froze up. He probably thinks I’m an idiot.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t.”

Ram’s not convinced. His answers to King’s father had consisted largely of monosyllables, shrugs and pointing meaningfully at King. _I don’t know but it’s with him_ was probably not the kind of ambitious answer any hypothetical father-in-law wanted to hear, but Ram didn’t know what else to say. Is he supposed to have his future mapped out before he turns nineteen? Does anyone? He isn’t even sure anymore that he’s chosen the right course of study.

“School is...still hard,” he admits. “Even with God King for a tutor.”

“And a lucky pencil,” King teases, but his voice turns serious when he adds, “I know, Cool Boy. I see you struggle even if we don’t talk about it much. Do you want to?”

“No.” Ram tightens his arms around King, pressing a kiss to his forehead. But then he makes a liar of himself by muttering defensively, “I’m not stupid.”

“ _Ram._ ” King pulls back to peer anxiously into his face in the faint illumination from the bathroom nightlight. “Fuck no, of course you’re not! I hope I’ve never done anything to make you think that.”

Ram can’t suppress a snort. “Exist?” But he soothes King’s agitation by hugging him close, his big hands caressing the sweetly familiar lines and planes of King’s body. “Not your fault. Everybody’s dumb compared to you.”

King brings a hand up to cradle his jaw. “Cool Boy...I’ve never asked,” he says softly, “but maybe I should have. Do you have any diagnosed learning disabilities?”

Reluctantly Ram calls up painful old memories of his parents looking worried as a whole series of specialists shook their heads in perplexity. “Nothing clear-cut,” he says. “Nothing like dyslexia or—what’s the numbers one?”

“Dyscalculia?”

“Yeah. That. A couple of school psychiatrists thought it might be an anxiety disorder.”

“Because of your selective mutism?” King guesses.

“Partly.” Resigned to not getting to sleep anytime soon, Ram rolls onto his back and draws his boyfriend with him, guiding King’s head onto his shoulder. “We moved a lot for my father’s work,” he says, “when I was young. All different countries. My father’s company did business in English but the foreign schools didn’t. I’d just start to feel at home and we’d move again. New language. Different customs. New school. No friends. Again and again.”

“God, that must’ve been so stressful for you,” King says. “How many languages?”

“I lost track. After five or six times I just stopped trying. Stopped talking completely.” He laughs suddenly, remembering the one positive thing from those painful, bewildering years. “Guess what finally helped.”

“Coming back to Thailand?” asks King.

“No, but it was around the same time.”

“What, then?”

“Getting the dogs.” He smiles to himself, remembering the adorable little furballs that would grow up to be his enormous huskies Horse and Pool. Later there would be Boat, who he adopted as an orphaned pup and nicknamed Balto after the heroic Alaskan sled dog—but at first it was just him and his two roly-poly fluffbutts romping joyfully together, them barking and him giggling.

“Your parents got them especially for you?”

“Yes, after my mother saw a news segment about children reading out loud to service dogs at the library.”

“I’ve seen articles about that,” King says, his voice going a little distant, and Ram knows he’s calling up the stories to revisit every word with his perfect recall. “It’s supposed to be a low-pressure, positive way for kids who are struggling to get more comfortable reading.”

“Right. Dogs don’t judge. Don’t criticize. They just love you.” He brings a hand up to stroke King’s neck and shoulder, feeling the faint imprint of the scars there. “I’m sorry you had such a bad early experience of dogs, baby. Most of them are so pure and good. Better than humans.”

“I’m starting to believe that now that I’ve met Tuffy.” King catches hold of Ram’s hand and brings it to his lips, pressing a kiss to the knuckles. “So the dogs helped you feel less anxious about speaking again?”

“Yes. Mae told me it was my job to train them, and I knew that was important. So I had to talk. They needed commands and praise.” 

“And love.”

“And love,” Ram agrees, “but dogs don’t care if that’s verbal.” He pets the top of King’s head in silent demonstration.

“But that made it easier to talk to people too?”

“After a while, yeah. Just my family at first. And then I met Duen, and you know how kind he is. He never made me feel anxious. Neither did his friends.” 

“And then you met an annoying but handsome engineer determined to make you talk.”

Ram smirks in the darkness. “You were definitely annoying.”

“Hey!” King swats at him in mock affront. “What about handsome?”

With a sigh for the sleep he’s apparently never, ever going to get, Ram runs a proprietary hand down King’s body. “You know.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“Kiss me first.” Not waiting for him to initiate it, Ram shifts to cover King with his body and claim his mouth. “Kiss me _instead._ ”

King too, it turns out, is happy to accept nonverbal demonstrations of love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, kiddies, you'll get some smut next chapter. ;)


	10. Wakeup Call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CW for consensual somnophilia. Negotiated in advance, but still. 
> 
> This chapter is 100% unadulterated smut, folks. If that ain't what you're here for, move along and rejoin our boys for the sugary domestic fluff coming up in the next installment.

As always, King wakes first and early—but for once he doesn’t immediately spring out of bed to make coffee and care for his plants. Instead he lies there beside his sleeping boyfriend, basking in Ram’s warmth and thinking about his tempting offer of the night before.

 _Anything we’ve done awake is fair game, no matter how deeply asleep I am._

Is he going to take Ram up on that? Oh hell yes. Fuck, he’s half hard just imagining it. But he’s not going to just leap on his sleeping lover without considering the situation first. Carefully. This is the closest he and Ram have ever flirted with the line between enthusiastic consent and dubious consent, and he’s not about to risk violating his partner’s boundaries for a cheap thrill.

For a first experiment with this particular kink, he decides, the goal of the game shouldn’t be “How much can I get away with?” The prize he’s chasing is Ram’s pleasure. How much can he arouse him, how high can he build the intensity before Ram wakes up? What would be the absolute perfect moment for Ram to become fully conscious?

Now there’s a delicious question. 

The pinnacle, King decides, would be for Ram to wake up exactly at the point of no return—aching, gasping, right on the verge of exploding into King. 

A yearning little whine escapes King at the thought and just like that he’s so hard it hurts. 

Too late he covers his mouth to stifle the sound, but it doesn’t matter; Ram doesn’t stir. Except when a bad dream makes him restless, his Cool Boy is a sound sleeper and a slow waker, the kind of person who needs to set at least two alarms and still manages to sleep through the first and snooze the second several times without remembering it afterwards.

Ram’s never going to forget _this_ wakeup call, though. King’s going to make very sure of that.

Quietly he slips out of bed to set the stage. 

It’s past sunrise, so King opens the blinds but angles them upward to keep the illumination indirect. In the gentle glow of morning Ram’s sleeping face looks sweet and peaceful, relaxed into the soft vulnerability he rarely shows to anyone but King when awake. King smiles fondly down at him, thinking of the dog plushie he’s got stashed with Bohn to keep it secret till Ram’s birthday. Something for him to cuddle in his sleep when King gets up too early for his liking.

(King has also acquired a studded collar that’s not intended for either Tuffy or the plush pup. He carefully omitted that fact when he handed the goods over to Bohn for safekeeping, but he caught Bohn’s knowing smirk and blushed to the roots of his hair.)

In the bathroom King lingers over his preparations, consulting his perfect memory for times Ram commented that he smelled nice or tasted good. The common denominator seems to be his herbal toothpaste and vanilla-lime body wash, both of which had prompted Ram to declare him “good enough to eat” before proving it in ways that make King shiver pleasurably to remember. _Down, boy,_ he thinks as his sudsy body reacts to the memory. _Save it for Ram._ That’s easier said than done as he continues with the more intimate preparations, though. By the time he’s thoroughly lubed and opened himself up, he’s panting and biting back little pleasure-moans that he hopes are muffled by the white noise of the bathroom’s exhaust fan. He knows he’s working himself up too much, but for what he’s got in mind he needs to be stretched and slick enough to take Ram in fast and hard and all at once—and his boyfriend is not small. 

His traitor brain serves up a Greatest Hits montage of Ram thrusting into his eagerly receptive body, and for a moment King has to lean against the shower wall and bite his fist. Abruptly he flips the water temperature over to cold, letting it blast his overheated body until both his skin and his ardor are thoroughly cooled. 

Wrapped loosely in his chrysanthemum-print kimono robe, King returns to the bedroom to slip back into bed with Ram. His lover is still deeply asleep, sprawled on his back with one arm flung over his head, conveniently naked from their intense makeout session the night before. All King needs to do is carefully draw the covers down to Ram’s thighs, putting all his tattoos and lean muscle on display. 

God he’s gorgeous. King loves Ram’s body, compact and strong, all that fair skin a perfect canvas for his many tattoos. Lately he’s twice caught Ram looking at line drawings of flowers, and he strongly suspects his boyfriend is planning for new ink in his honor. He wonders where it will be placed. The flat belly, the hip, a lean flank, his thigh? Or somewhere visible when he’s dressed? The thought of Ram flaunting a tattoo that represents King and their relationship is both terrifying and thrilling. Giving a relationship of mere months a permanent legacy inked into his flesh seems hasty—and yet King can understand it. If they crashed and burned tomorrow, he’d still forever carry the memory of Ram as his first real love. And if the memory is indelible, why not the ink?

“I love you, Cool Boy,” he murmurs, stretching out beside Ram and taking his near hand to press it to King’s silk-covered chest. Ram remains loose and relaxed as King guides his hand inside the open robe, sliding it down King’s body till Ram’s palm is pressed to his shaft.

Ram gives a contented little sigh, closes his hand loosely around King’s cock, and sleeps on.

For a few moments King gives in to temptation, rocking his hips to fuck gently into Ram’s curled hand, letting his sleeping boyfriend unknowingly stimulate him to a full erection again. After a few strokes Ram’s hand closes more firmly and King freezes, convinced his little game is over before it can truly begin—but no, Ram’s body is still lax with sleep, his breathing deep and slow even as he mumbles “Baby” almost too low for King to hear. As King cautiously resumes the motion, Ram smiles faintly in his sleep but doesn’t otherwise stir, although he continues to intermittently murmur endearments in a low, sleep-drunk tone that somehow reminds King of a purr.

“Baby. My gorgeous baby…”

Words don’t necessarily mean wakefulness with Ram, not this early; King has heard him curse in his sleep for a full minute when his alarm goes off without once opening his eyes. So he indulges himself with a few more slow thrusts, enjoying the warm friction of Ram’s loose fist and the sleep-drugged slur of his voice.

“Want you. Want you so much, P’King...”

King wonders if he can have an actual conversation with Ram in this state. Curious, he brings his lips close to Ram’s ear and whispers, “How do you want me?”

At first Ram’s only reply is a drowsy sigh between half-parted lips, but he moves his head from side to side almost fretfully before subsiding back into loose-limbed relaxation. 

“Tell me,” King urges, pressing his lips softly to Ram’s in a barely-there kiss. While awaiting an answer, he drapes the skirt of his robe across Ram’s groin, stroking him lightly but rhythmically through the layer of slippery silk. 

Ram exhales on a broken sigh, his thighs falling open at King’s touch even as his hand tightens on King’s cock. “Hard,” he groans. “Push you down. Hold you down. Fuck you till you scream.”

 _No fucking way,_ King thinks as Ram’s words send a lightning bolt of desire down his spine. _He’s got to be awake!_

But when King halts all his movements, hips gone still and hand paused, all Ram does is sigh another plaintive “Baby” before his breathing evens and slows again. Is he dreaming, King wonders? Incorporating the real-world sensations into an erotic fantasy as he sleeps? Talking to a dream-King even as King whispers to the sleeping Ram? 

And fucking his dream-King like a _beast,_ from the sound of it. God. King’s weirdly jealous of his own imaginary self.

He loves Ram’s gentleness with him, the tender care his boyfriend exercises in wielding his greater strength with King. Loves too the way Ram worships his body like a sacred object, his hands and lips tracing every line, plane and curve. But one day soon, King swears, he’s going to make this man completely lose control and take him full force. And King will thrill at every moment when it happens.

But that’s a game for another day. He’s playing for a different prize this morning. 

Still gazing at Ram, King runs through a mental tally of his lover’s favorite bedroom activities (his freakish brain helpfully calculates the frequency as a percentage of total sexual encounters). The three his Cool Boy initiates most often all require an awake, actively participating Ram: fellating King; jerking himself off all over King’s bare skin and using the cum as lubricant to jerk King off in turn; and fucking King in a position the gay sex sites like to call Pirate’s Bounty, King on his back with one leg raised onto Ram’s shoulder and the other wrapped around his thigh. It’s a gratifyingly deep position, one that lets King enjoy a good pounding while Ram gets the face-to-face contact he prefers.

King frowns. Is it just coincidence that Ram’s favorites all involve him doing most of the work while King just gets to lie back and bask in the pleasure? Does Ram actually prefer it that way? Or is King a selfish little bastard who’s not giving as good as he gets?

He remembers a joke a drunk TingTing once made about her ex-boyfriend Yacht being lousy in bed: “He always wanted to sixty-eight.” When everyone gave her a blank look she’d explained, “You know, like sixty-nine! Only you blow him and he owes you one.”

Ram deserves better than a sixty-eight. 

Moving smoothly and quietly, King extracts himself from Ram’s loose grip and shifts himself further down the mattress, positioning his face a scant centimeter from Ram’s silk-covered cock. He pulls the fabric tight across its contours to admire the shape and length, bringing his lips to the silk to ghost his breath across the blunt head. He mouths it delicately, planting soft damp kisses that he alternates with little puffs of breath, teasing Ram to hardness while still barely touching him. Only when Ram is fully erect and leaking precum through the silk does King whisk the fabric aside to press his tongue to the tempting tip, breathing in his lover’s musky scent as he savors the few salty drops that linger in the slit.

He’s fairly sure that Ram will wake if he’s deep-throated, so King has to proceed more cautiously. He experiments little by little, risking a touch here, a flick of the tongue there, a grazing of teeth across skin, a caress—mindfully noting which actions Ram seems to peacefully accept in his dozing state, which make him restless, and how long a pause is needed for him to relax and drift away again.

Slowly but inexorably, King fine-tunes the erotic choreography. A kiss, then another. A teasing stroke of King’s tongue across his dreamcatcher tattoo....a pause. A nibble at Ram’s nipple...a moment’s suction...a pause. A sweep of silk across belly, groin, and thighs...a pause. A warm hand wrapped firmly around Ram’s hard length, rhythmically working the shaft as King’s lips close around his cockhead: stroke, suck, pause, repeat. Again. Again. And yet again.

When Ram’s exhales become low, sleepy moans and his hips automatically lift to chase the sensations, King knows the time is ripe. Desire pools hot and heavy in his belly as he straddles Ram, careful not to let their bodies touch until he’s satisfied that he’s poised to use his weight and leverage to best advantage. Only then does he reach down between them, his breath catching in a hiss of anticipation as he guides Ram into alignment with his well-lubed hole. 

In one swift movement he plunges downward, driving Ram’s cock deep into the heat of his body.

 _Oh god oh god oh god._ He means to keep his eyes fixed on Ram’s face but they close involuntarily for an instant as he cries out in pleasure and pain. Holy. Fucking. Hell. He’s never taken in all of Ram’s length so fast. Too fast. The burn and stretch, the heat, the sensation of being abruptly forced open and filled—it _hurts,_ but it hurts _so good._

With a low groan, overwhelmed by sensation, King rises up on his knees and _slams_ down again, fast and hard, once and twice and three times before Ram bucks under him and his eyes fly open.

“ _P’King,_ ” Ram gasps. For just a moment his face is shocked, disoriented, then the daze clears and his next breath comes out as a broken moan. “Baby—oh fuck, _baby_ —” He bucks up again to meet King’s next downward thrust and his hands scrabble at King’s thighs before clamping onto his hips so hard that King will surely be wearing finger bruises later. “Oh god don’t stop.”

“Not—going to,” King grunts as he bears down hard, taking Ram to the hilt and immediately rising again, riding him like he’s going for rodeo gold. “Not till—I make—you come." 

He presses his hands to Ram’s pecs, leaning into him to adjust the angle between them while keeping up the relentless pace. Ram’s hips are snapping up to meet every thrust now, each downstroke of King’s body forcing a filthy moan from his lips. King’s thigh muscles are beginning to burn but it’s worth it when Ram’s moans take on a higher, desperate pitch and his body begins to tremble under King. 

“Close,” Ram gets out between clenched teeth. “Oh god, baby, I’m _so close_.”

“ _Good,_ ” is all King can manage through his exertions. 

Suddenly Ram’s eyes go wide and his movements falter, falling out of rhythm with King. He raises his head to stare down at where they’re joined, his expression a peculiar mix of alarmed and aroused. 

“Baby. No condom?”

“No. You said...” Struggling now, King throws his head back and tries to suck in enough air to reply properly. “After our test. You wanted—” 

As a precaution they’d both gotten tested after the broken condom incident, and while King took the clean results for granted with a shrug, Ram had reacted very differently. He’d looked from the printout of lab results to King and back again, heat and anticipation in his eyes. 

“—to come in you bare. Fuck. Yes, baby, _fuck yes._ ” With a feral growl Ram surges up to him, releasing his punishing hold on King’s hips to seize a double handful of hair and claim King’s mouth in a fierce kiss. “Yes,” he groans against King’s lips. “Yes. _Yes._ ” 

With the last of his strength King bears down hard one more time and _grinds,_ forcing Ram even deeper as his boyfriend utters a sharp, incoherent cry. 

“Come for me,” King grits out. “In me. Come in your baby, Cool Boy. Fill me up with it now, _now—_ ”

Ram cries out again and goes to pieces, his whole body shuddering under King’s with the force of his release. His breathing hitches and his eyes start to roll back as King continues to rock into him, onto him, milking every drop of Ram’s climax into his own body.

“Breathe, Cool Boy,” King croons, his motions slowing, gentling. He wraps his arms around Ram, taking more of his weight as his boyfriend goes loose and pliant, spent. “I’ve got you, sweetness.” 

“Baby.” Clumsily Ram presses a kiss to King’s sweat-damp skin as his head droops heavily onto King’s shoulder. “Love you.” 

“Love you too.” King eases him back onto the mattress, giving a pained hiss as he tries to stretch his overexerted legs without dislodging Ram. “Fuck. I’m a little shaky. Riding you is a workout.”

“Mmm.” Ram strokes one big hand down the length of his spine, finishing up with a soft pat to King’s backside. “My poor baby. I’ll take care of you. Just...give me a minute, mkay?” His eyes flutter shut.

“Ram.” King stares down at him in disbelief. 

“Mmph?”

“Ram! You are _not_ falling back asleep with your dick still in my ass!”

“Nuh...”

“ _Ram!_ ”

Strong arms clamp tight around him, Ram’s body flexes—

—and King finds himself flat on his back with his boyfriend over him, eyes open wide and smiling a feral smile.

“Good morning,” growls Ram. “Guess who’s for breakfast?”

~

“Did you like it?” Ram asks him later, when they’re cozied up for pillow talk—or what passes for it with Ram, which is usually King talking too much until Ram shuts him up with kisses.

“The sleepy sex?” King asks. At Ram’s nod he hums pensively before equivocating with, “Yes and no. It was exciting because it was new and different, and there’s that hint of the forbidden about it too, you know? Because it’s pushing the consent boundaries, but in a way we agreed on beforehand. So that was a turn-on. And riding you that hard was hot as hell.”

“But?” Ram prompts.

He props himself up on one elbow to steal a kiss, swift, soft and sweet. “But until you woke up it felt like you weren’t really _there._ It was like…” King hums again, considering. “Like you were just responding to stimuli, not to me. Like it could’ve been anybody touching you and your body would’ve reacted just the same.”

Ram palms the back of his neck to pull him in for another kiss. “But my subconscious knew it was you. I was dreaming of you.”

King’s lips curve up in a gratified little smile. “I wondered if you were! You talked to me a little.” The smile becomes a grin. “About how hard you wanted to bang me.”

“I did not!”

“Oh yes, you absolutely did.” Still grinning, King adds, “Do the words ‘push you down, hold you down, fuck you till you scream’ ring a bell? They should.”

“Liar.”

“Go ahead and deny it. I know the truth. And I’ll remember it for- _EV_ -er.” 

He probably deserves the pillow to the face.


	11. Will Work for Food

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tuffy's homecoming makes Ram and King realize how much adult responsibility they've taken on lately.

“The thing about love,” King tells the fern earnestly, “is that the more you give, the more you have to give. So me having someone new to love doesn’t mean I have any less for you, OK?”

“Worried they’ll be jealous of Tuffy?”

King glances over his shoulder with a smirk. “Maybe I’m worried they’ll be jealous of _you._ ”

Ram is leaning against the doorframe, watching with drowsy affection as his boyfriend tenderly reassures the bathroom plants of his affections. Miraculously there are only two in this room so far, which Ram has nicknamed Arrow and Bird to help him remember their common names: arrowhead plant and bird’s nest fern. These species love humidity, King had explained when he chose their placement, making them a smart choice for a room that regularly gets steamy. 

Their bathroom gets steamy quite a lot, in more ways than one. 

He’ll never recognize all of King’s plants—not unless King can magically give him some of that eidetic memory of his—but King is so transparently happy when he tries that Ram has resolved to learn a few. He’s made a good start by memorizing the hanging plants one by one while installing ceiling hooks and sconce mounts for them around the apartment. In addition to Arrow and Bird, he now knows Burro and Goldie, the burro’s tail and golden pothos hanging in their bedroom, as well as Ripple, Pearl, and Ivy in the dining room (a ripple peperomia, string of pearls, and English ivy, respectively).

He’s spent more time this week memorizing plant names than engineering principles, which should probably worry him more than it does. 

“Talk me through the introduction process again, please,” says King with a final caress of Bird’s fronds. He steps up to Ram for a caress of a different kind, making a pleased little hum as Ram catches hold of the waistband of his pajama pants to tug him closer.

Ram gives him a skeptical look before planting a kiss on his brow. “You can’t tell me you’ve forgotten, Genius Boy.”

“Of course not, but it’s only my head that’s confident. My gut is nervous. It’ll calm me down to hear it from you again.”

“Kiss me first,” Ram counters. King promptly winds both arms around his neck and pays the kiss tax with enthusiasm, the taste of his herbal toothpaste blending pleasantly with the coffee flavor lingering on Ram’s tongue. 

“Happy now?” King asks saucily as he steps back to arm’s length. “Come on, talk me through the welcome-home while I water the living room plants.”

Ram nods his assent, although he detours through the kitchen first to collect another cup of coffee before seating himself on the living room sofa. “At nine o’clock we’ll meet Apple and Tuffy outside,” he says as King makes the rounds of his plants, misting and watering as needed. “We’ll take Tuffy to the potty area in the courtyard first so she’s less likely to have any nervous accidents in here. Then we’ll walk her through the condo on her leash to get her bearings. While we’re doing that, Apple will leave quietly so Tuffy doesn’t see her go.”

“Do you think she’ll be anxious?”

“Probably. But she knows us, especially you, and we’ll stay close. We’ll have the whole day to get her settled in before bedtime. Apple will bring the bedding she used in Tuffy’s crate to help her feel at home too.”

“Unwashed, right? So it’ll have a familiar scent.”

“Right. Same bedding, same size crate, same dog food and treats. It all helps.”

King makes a face. “Does she really need to sleep in the crate? It seems like dog jail.”

“While she’s adjusting, yeah. Think of it as her den. Like a blanket fort, na? Cozy and safe. P’King...”

Picking up on his solicitous tone, King sets aside his watering can and flops down on the sofa with his head in Ram’s lap. Ram runs his fingers through the soft strands of his hair, stroking and soothing him as he might one of his huskies until King’s eyes drift shut and the nervous tension in his body loosens.

“I’m worried, Cool Boy,” he says. “I want Tuffy with us, you know I do—but this morning it hit me that I’ve never been totally responsible for another living creature before. I always thought my plants would be the closest I ever had to children.”

“No, that’d be Bohn,” Ram deadpans. “Why, though? Not interested in kids?”

King catches his hand and brings it to his lips, first nuzzling and then nibbling at his fingertips. “Honestly? I’m not sure. Who is at this age? I love my nephews a lot but I always get to hand them back to their parents when I get tired. What about you? Do you see yourself being a dad someday?”

Ram looks past him at the courtyard outside their glass patio doors. It’s all green and golden there, with splashes of vibrant color from the planters of flowers, and he thinks that this is what he’s supposed to see when he looks ahead to his adult life: Growth. Things in bloom. Clear skies and bright promise. Instead it’s just...fog. 

“I have trouble picturing my future,” he admits. “Always have. University was supposed to help.”

“But it hasn’t,” King says softly. It’s not a question.

“No. It hasn’t. Everything’s been hard, P’King. Uni. My classes. My family. Talking.” His gaze drops to King’s face again and he tries to smile reassuringly when King’s eyes open, filled with love and concern for him. “Everything but dogs and you.”

“Ram, do you _want_ to be an engineer? Because I’ll tutor you as much as it takes, if you do. But is it really your dream?”

He shrugs. “No. Never really had a dream before. I just had to choose something.” 

“Before?” With a stretch and a wriggle King sits up, the slippery silk of his hair brushing Ram’s chin as he resettles himself with his head on Ram’s shoulder. “And now?”

Ram goes still, his heart thumping alarmingly fast as he realizes he’s given away too much. “You know,” he mumbles, hoping King will let it pass. But of course he doesn’t. King with a question in his mind is like a dog with a bone.

“Tell me anyway.”

For a fleeting moment Ram feels a flare of resentment. _Words._ Why does everyone expect words? Isn’t it enough just to love and be good to each other? Swiftly he turns his head to capture King’s mouth with his own. “It’s you,” he says between kisses. “P’King. You know it’s you.” 

King returns the kisses ardently, but when they draw apart again Ram can see the uncertainty lingering in his eyes. “You know I love you, Cool Boy,” he says unsteadily, “but this isn’t exactly making me _less_ nervous about being responsible for another living creature. What if I’m not good at it?”

Ram squeezes his knee. “With Tuffy?” he asks. “Or me?”

“Both?” 

In answer, Ram scoops King onto his lap and hugs him close, trying to convey through his touch all that’s so difficult to put into those elusive, slippery words. What he’d give to be a dog, who could say with wags and licks and an ever-faithful presence what human beings insist on turning into _meaningful conversation._

“You’re already good at it,” he murmurs, pressing his cheek to King’s. “Stop worrying. Just be with me. Now. This minute. Then the next one.”

“That,” says King, shifting to straddle him, “I can do.”

~

Apple and the dog are still ten meters away but Ram can already tell that Tuffy is trembling with eagerness to reach them.

For that matter, so is King. 

“Tuffy! There’s my pretty girl!”

As King rushes ahead and Tuffy strains at her leash, Ram and Apple exchange amused, indulgent smiles. Apple does order Tuffy into a Sit-Stay before King reaches her, though, and Ram is pleased to see that the dog’s obedience holds even under the thrill of being greeted and petted by her excited new owner.

“Look at you!” King exclaims, kneeling down to stroke Tuffy’s head and scratch behind her ears. “You look so glossy—have you had a bath?”

“Bath and a claw trim yesterday,” confirms Apple, earning her a slightly guilty look from King, who scrambles to his feet to offer her a quick wai in greeting. Ram follows suit less hastily as King returns his attention to the dog.

“She looks so well,” Ram says, observing Tuffy’s shiny coat, bright eyes, and happy canine grin. “You’ve done wonders with her, Phi.”

Apple’s smile is serene, but Ram knows there’s always an emotional pang at surrendering a foster dog that you’ve nurtured and loved. “It’s been a pleasure, especially knowing she was headed for such a good home. Nong,” she adds to King, “why don’t you walk her in your courtyard while Ram and I unload her things?”

King eagerly accepts the hand loop of Tuffy’s leash, his eyes bright with happiness. “Thank you, P’Apple! I’ll take the very best care of her, I promise you.” 

“I’ll join you in a few minutes,” Ram says. “Show her the potty area. Praise if she uses it. Got training treats?”

King pats his pocket in the affirmative and sets off with a tug on Tuffy’s leash, commanding “Come!” and “Heel, Tuffy!” just as they’ve practiced in the training sessions. Ram gazes after them, well aware that he’s wearing a ridiculously besotted smile. King alone has that effect on him, but King with a dog? _Their_ dog, bound for their home together? It’s almost more than his poor infatuated heart can take.

When he looks back at Apple he’s thrown off balance by the unexpectedly tender expression on her face. He’s seen her turn that look on many a frightened and neglected animal, but never a human being and certainly never himself.

“You look happy, Ram,” she says simply, answering his unspoken question. “It’s good to see.”

Ram just nods, figuring that his face has said enough for him already, and bends to take the carton of Tuffy’s belongings from the open trunk of her car. On the very top is the t-shirt King had stripped from his own body that fateful day, to leave his scent behind with Tuffy—dirty and definitely worse for wear from serving as dog bedding all these weeks. On Ram’s advice King had renewed the scent during each of his visits, rubbing the dirty shirt under his arms before returning it to her crate. Fastidious King had objected the first time, until Apple showed him a photo of Tuffy sleeping with the shirt between her front paws, her nose pushed deep into the fabric.

“I’ll be on my way so Tuffy doesn’t see me leave,” Apple says, as Ram had expected. But she pauses a moment before getting into the car, giving him a long assessing look that he’s not sure how to interpret. “I’ll see you in a few days, right? At the shelter?”

Again Ram nods. The animal shelter’s volunteer coordinator had already contacted him with news of a big batch of rescue dogs on their way from a rural province, which always requires extra hands on deck. “I’m scheduled Saturday. Helping with temperament testing. You too?”

“All morning, yes, so we’ll overlap. I’d like to take you for a meal afterwards, if you have time—something has come up that I’d like to chat with you about.” At Ram’s puzzled frown she pats his shoulder reassuringly, much the way she’d soothe an anxious foster dog. “No worries, Nong. But there’s an opportunity I think might suit you, and I wanted to run it past you before I mention it to anyone else. OK?”

“Oh. OK.” Relieved, Ram hoists the box higher and jerks his head toward the condo building. “I’d better go. P’King will be waiting. Thanks for everything, P’Apple.” He executes a wai as best he can with his hands occupied, earning a kindly answering smile from the foster caregiver.

“It was no bother. She’s a sweetheart and so is your King. Send me pictures of her sometimes, please?” For the first time since her arrival Apple’s cheerfulness wavers, her mouth trembling a little before she squares her chin and collects herself. “You know I get attached.”

“I will. We will. Promise.” 

“Good. Off I go, then, and I’ll see you Saturday. Congratulations on your new family, Ram.” 

Despite his haste to rejoin King, Ram ends up standing there watching her drive away, struck into stillness by her words. Well, one word in particular.

_Family._

~

After putting the dog food, treats, toys, and bedding in their intended places, Ram lets himself out the patio doors into the courtyard to join King and Tuffy. They’re still near the corner of the courtyard designated for pet use, where a length of artificial turf has been installed over a drainage system to keep odors at a minimum. The monthly “pet rent” they’ll pay for Tuffy will cover their share of maintenance of the area, which also features a poop-bag dispenser, a covered trash can, and a simple dog-washing station with a shallow tub and a hose. It’s nothing fancy but most buildings they toured had no dog amenities at all, so Ram considers them lucky to have found one that’s given pets more than a passing thought. 

King’s back is turned so Tuffy spots him first, giving an exuberant bark as he draws near. Ram is happy to see that her body language is excited, not fearful—she even drops her front into a play bow as Ram holds up the tennis ball he’d reserved from her toy supply. He lobs it to her underhand when he’s just a few yards away and Tuffy snatches it up at once, although her obvious desire to run off with it is thwarted by her leash.

“Good girl!” Ram praises, bending to pat her. Her golden-brown fur looks smooth and glossy in the morning sun, a testament to Apple’s loving care. Tuffy wags and wriggles under his attention and drops the tennis ball to lick his face lavishly. 

“Hey!” King objects. “No dog germs where I want to put my own lips!” He slips an arm around Ram’s waist when he straightens up, giving him a squeeze as they both gaze down affectionately at the wagging dog. “She peed in the right spot, but just a little. I think she’s distracted.” 

Ram shrugs. “It’s a start. She’ll learn when we keep bringing her to the same place.”

King lets his arm drop, only to catch hold of his hand instead. “Should we walk her around the block? Show her the neighborhood before we go inside?”

Ram doesn’t answer with words; he simply sets forth toward the street, towing along King who in turn tugs Tuffy along on her leash. For an instant Ram is reminded of one of Ruj’s childhood toys, a wooden duck on wheels with three ducklings behind her on a string. King is more of a magpie, though, shiny and bright-eyed with intelligence.

“I can do her morning walks,” says King as they start down the block, “since I get up earlier anyway. If she has to wait till you’re conscious in the morning, she’ll have an accident on the floor.”

Ram manages to elbow him in the ribs without releasing his hand. “Morning people. So smug.” After a pause he adds, “I’ll do the bedtime walks.”

“Is Ruj still on board?” King asks. Worried that their class schedules would make it difficult to get home for Tuffy’s midday walk, they’d proposed a deal to Ram’s brother: tutoring from the God King in return for him walking Tuffy after school. Ruj’s high school wraps up its lessons at 2 p.m. most days, and by happy coincidence it’s only a mile away from their new home. 

“Yeah. He’ll come over for introductions tomorrow. I’ve got the spare key ready.” Ram steals a sidelong look at him as they approach the neighborhood convenience store, where they pause to offer Tuffy a drink from the water bowl the owner sets out for local dogs. “You’re sure you don’t mind?”

“Tutoring your brother? Of course not. He’s a good kid.” 

“Thank you.” Ram squeezes his hand, knowing King understands that the gratitude encompasses more than Ruj’s academic achievement. Unspoken but understood between them are two other benefits of the arrangement: Ram gets to see more of his brother without worrying about encountering his father, and Pin has one less excuse to darken the door of Ram’s family home.

“Is Pin still trying to contact you?” King asks, following Ram’s train of thought with his usual uncanny accuracy. 

“Sometimes. Just a few texts. I don’t answer.” He hasn’t blocked her either, though, and he can’t really explain why. On the off chance he might want to demand answers one day? Seek some kind of closure? Ram isn’t sure. He just knows that each time he pulls up Pin’s name in his contact list, his finger drifts toward the Delete button and then away again.

“I’m sorry,” King says softly, bumping their shoulders together. “I didn’t mean to bring that up on a happy day. Oh hey, look—the moo ping auntie is here with her cart today! Should I get us some for lunch?” 

Grateful for the change of subject, Ram nods his assent and silently takes charge of Tuffy while King approaches the food vendor to purchase skewers of grilled pork and bags of sticky rice. Tuffy strains at her leash, sniffing the air and whining to join him, but Ram pulls her back to his side. “He’ll be right back,” he soothes, stroking her silky ears. “Good girl. See? Here he comes now.”

King approaches holding both hands aloft, one with the bag of food and the other a closed fist. “Auntie gave me a tiny piece for Tuffy, can she have it?”

“Plain or saucy?” asks Ram. The savory marinade, while delicious for humans, isn’t intended for canine bellies.

“Plain.”

“Sure. Make her work for it, though. Give me the bag,” Ram adds, “so you can do her signals.”

“OK. Tuffy, watch me!” King points to his eye, waiting for the dog to give him her attention before he executes the next command. 

Tuffy’s muzzle comes up sharply as she tracks the gesture, her whole body a-quiver with anticipation.

King drops the hand to his leg, turning it palm out before raising it toward his shoulder again. “Tuffy, sit!” 

Tuffy drops obediently to her haunches.

“Good girl! Tuffy, stay!” King extends his arm, palm toward her muzzle, and waits for a silent count of three before rewarding her with the treat. “Aww, that’s my smart girl. No, there’s no more,” he adds as Tuffy licks her chops and eyes him with pleading adoration. “Papa Ram says I can’t spoil you with too many treats, it’s bad for your health.”

Ram snorts at that and hands him the leash loop. “I’m Papa?”

King shoots him a dazzling grin. “Would you prefer Daddy?”

He doesn’t even dignify that with an answer, just turns on his heels toward home and gestures King to follow. “Come on.”

“Hey, wait!” he hears from behind him. “Cool Boy, that looked suspiciously like the same hand signal you taught me for Tuffy.”

Ram keeps walking.

“Cool Boy, are you training _me?_ ”

Ram says nothing.

“Because I don’t work for pork treats, you know! I expect different rewards.”

Ram keeps walking, biting the inside of his lip to keep from smiling.

“Cool Boy!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Agghhhhh it's been SO LONG since I updated! So sorry, guys! Thank you for your patience. And I know this installment isn't nearly long enough, because we didn't even get Tuffy INSIDE their condo...but now that I've got my brain back in this story I should be updating more quickly/often.


End file.
